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The 

Inner Life 

and the 

Tao-Teh-King 



By 
- 
C. H, A. BJERREGAARD 

Librarian, New York Public Library 



New York 

THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING CO. 
OF NEW YORK 

253 West 72nd Street 
1912 



IS* 









Copyright 1911 

By THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING CO. 
OP NEW YORK 



Published December 1, 1912 



©CU328748 



CONTENTS. 

Chapter I. — The Inner Life and the Tao-Teh-King. . 1- 16 

Chapter IL— The Inner Life 17-33 

Chapter ITT. — Mysticism 34- 58 

Chapter IV. — Simplicity 59- 71 

Chapter V.— The Sage 72-88 

Chapter VI. — Laotzse 89-104 

Chapter VII.— Longevity 105-123 

Chapter VIII. — Nature Worship 124-135 

Chapter IX.— Tao 136-151 

Chapter X.— Teh 152-166 

Chapter XL— Life, Love, Light and Will 167-180 

Chapter XII.— A Shawnee Tale 182-195 

Chapter XIII.— "Non-Action" 196-210 

Chapter XIV.— Nature 211-219 

Chapter XV. — An Appendix on Jean Jacques Rous- 
seau's Ideas 220-225 



in 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR: 

Lectures on Mysticism and Talks on Kindred Subjects . Chicago, 1896. 

Lectures on Mysticism and Nature Worship . Chicago, 1897. 

A Sufi Interpretation of Omar Khayyam and Fitzgerald. New 
York, 1902. 

Jesus, a Poet, Prophet, Mystic and Man of Freedom. New York, 1912. 

Articles on Mysticism, Sufism and Kindred Subjects in The Inter- 
national Encyclopedia, The Cyclopedia of Religious Knowledge 
(S. M. Jackson), Encyclopedia Americana (1904), etc., etc. 



iv 



PREFACE 

These chapters were originally lectures to a small, but select company. 
They are now revised and published for a larger world. They claim not 
to be exhaustive, but only an attempt in direction of a mystic interpre- 
tation of the Tao-Teh-King, a manner of reading that famous book but 
little practiced and less understood. The only proper way of reading that 
book is in the light of mysticism. The book can certainly not be handled 
like a Confucian document. 

I lay no claim to be a Sinologist. I have, however, in many places 
examined the texts and made translations differing somewhat from others. 
Elsewhere I have used all the known translations, with which I have 
usually agreed. 

It is more than thirty years since I began in this country to call 
attention to the Tao-Teh-King. It was then an almost unknown book. 
Since then, several translations and paraphrases have been published in 
this country and articles of more or less value have appeared in magazines, 
but much remains to be done if this treasure is to become known where it 
ought to be known. I hope my undertaking may be a step in that 
direction. Without the generosity of the theosophists before whom the 
original lectures were delivered, the book could not have been published. 
I owe them my profound thanks. 

C. H. A. BJERREGAARD. 



THE INNEE LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

I. 

THE main difficulty in speaking about the Inner Life is 
the language that must be used. 
The medieval and renaissance mystics and occultists 
were obliged for various reasons to use alchemical 
language and phraseology to express their wisdom of life, be- 
cause such language was picturesque and easily comprehended 
by minds of a mechanical and practical turn, minds crude and 
ignorant of their own psychic powers and processes. 

To-day we have the same difficulty to overcome as the older 
mystics. Our audiences are unfamiliar with psychology and 
so little in the habit of seeing themselves as units, that they 
really believe themselves to be mere bundles of faculties, forces 
and states, and are unable to give an account of their mental, 
moral and spiritual condition. It is therefore necessary to pre- 
sent the Inner Life as if it were something in space and time. 
It is necessary to speak of traveling on paths, as if such paths 
were actual roads; and yet, Inner Life and Outer Life, Travel- 
ing and Paths, are only terms of psychic conditions. I shall 
in this chapter speak of passing over bridges as if I literally 
meant it. I shall be using realistic language, but not talk about 
realistic bridges. I shall talk psychology. Spiritually under- 
stood, there is no Inner Life, there is no Outer Life, there is no 
Path, no Bridge, No East, No West, no High, no Low — what 
is there? Well — wait till you have read these chapters and you 
may know! 

I will now do like the genial boy does who wants to know 
how his machinery is made and put together — he picks it to 
pieces and examines it. I will likewise pick our deeper life to 
pieces and try to show what it is and how it works, and, as I 
proceed, I shall put it together again. 

A few words about different standpoints and the "two 
that of the Orient and that of the Occident. For the 



2 THE INNEB LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

sake of the deepest understanding of problems which are of 
the uttermost importance to all thinking people, it is desirable 
that all theosophic and mystic subjects should be studied from a 
Western standpoint as well as from an Oriental. Most of you 
here present are accustomed, I think, to hear these subjects 
presented in Oriental phrases and in set terminology, all de- 
rived from Eastern sources. It has seemed to me desirable that 
you should hear the same truths set forth in Western termin- 
ology. I am sure you can only be the gainers. I propose to 
set them forth that way. But let me say something to guide 
you to see the similarities and to prevent confusion. 

Let me take as an illustration a familiar object, a lense, 
either concave or convex. The lense remains a lense what- 
ever you do with it, but it reflects the light variously as the 
light falls upon the concave or the convex. You may call the 
concave a type of the East, and the convex a type of the West, 
if you like, or vice versa. The viewpoint and the judgment are 
personal, indifferent, not real; the reality in the case is the 
fact that the lense reflects the light. The lense, of course, is the 
mind. 

Because I speak of great truths from the Western point 
of view and in Western terminology, I differ only from some 
of you in viewpoint and in personal aspect, but not really; we 
meet in the middle, in mind; in the Inner Life; in the fact that 
we both reflect the real, each in our individual way, however. 

Another illustration. Let us suppose I pass over a bridge : 
the "bridge of existence/ ' from one end, the Western, and you 
from the other end, the Eastern. We shall see the Middle of 
the bridge and the approaches differently, but we shall both be 
passing the same bridge. And let me add that it would be wise 
for those of my listeners who have passed over such a bridge 
from one end only also to pass back over the bridge from 
the other end. They shall certainly be the wiser for so doing. 
It is the mystic's way. And let me say further, and, here I 
hint at a mystery, let me say, that since neither you nor I know 
absolutely which is the beginning or the end of the bridge, that 
it is immaterial which is the East or the West end of it. The 
most important part of the bridge is the Middle; from the 
Middle of the bridge we may ascend into another plane of ex- 
istence, and find that that existence is the real one, and that 
neither of the two approaches have any reality. 

Nature knows of no Beginning nor End; knows only the 



THE INNER LIFE 



Middle ; the Inner Life. She spreads out continually from the 
Center, from the ever-present Now. For that reason, the Middle 
is called the first or fundamental principle and is the Inner Life. 
And for that reason, I say, that neither the East end nor the 
West end have any reality. As for myself, I have long ago 
come to the conclusion that neither end of the bridge is the real 
one, and, long ago a wise man talked much about the Middle 
Path. I, for one, am sure he spoke the truth. And I have found 
many who also have understood him. 

What is the Middle? Now I shall not indulge in meta- 
physics or mysticism, but use a well-known theosophic phrase 
as my illustration. The theosophic doctrine of " Brotherhood' ' 
is a very practical application of the philosophic doctrine Mid- 
dle ; it is the at-one-ing point for all races and creeds ; it answers 
to the One in philosophy. In that doctrine Theosophy pro- 
claims equal rights for all extremes. It is the gospel of "good 
will among men." It answers, as I said, to the One in phi- 
losophy; and to Unity. It is that which Schiller calls the Holy 
Will and "the idea supreme"; it is the power, that works for 
righteousness; the "spirit of rest" that ever tries to stay the 
changeful world. It is the "Love" of St. John; it is "the pure 
form of thought ' ' of Kant. It is " god incarnate ' ' of Christian- 
ity. All these terms explain what the Middle is ; what the Inner 
Life is. They explain that Middle, which we meet from whatever 
end we enter the bridge of life, and it is from such a Middle, I 
said, that we readily swing ourselves to heaven. Unless we come 
to the perfect realization, that life is one, one glorious whole, 
and not split up into various antagonistic elements, we shall 
never come to sound and rational philosophies or religions. Hu- 
man life is fallen apart and now lies in most unfortunate dual- 
isms of good and evil, of inner and outer, of upper and lower, of 
heaven and hell. The guilty ones are both saints and sinners; 
the first in ignorance, the latter in wilful misrepresentation. 
Away! Away! Let us now and henceforth build temples to 
Unity, to the One, to the Middle, to the Inner Life ! Life, Ex- 
istence, is one, not manifold; one at the core; only manifold in 
manifestation. Let us hang on to that. With this doctrine and 
realization before us, we can without fear examine the charac- 
teristics of the East and the West and see how they are merely 
extremes of a Higher Truth, a Higher Unity. And perhaps 
you will agree with me that it is desirable that I should speak 
from a Western point of view. 



4 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

To simplify matters, let me characterize the two viewpoints. 
The East is synthetic; the West is analytic; that, of course, 
makes views different, yet the multitudinousness of the circum- 
ference is only the center spread out, so to say. They answer 
to each other like concave and convex. Do they not? The East 
is sympathetic and has religion ; the West is intellectual and has 
culture; that of course separates the two; but as sympathy 
means heart, and culture means brain, the two make a complete 
man : One ; the Grand Man, Adam Kadmon, the Inner Life. The 
East discovered the World, the great objective; the West dis- 
covered and asserted the Ego, Man. To the East, the individual 
man is vanity and must be denied. The West declares that the 
world must be denied ; but the discoverer in both cases was In- 
telligence, Mind: hence they meet. Intelligence, Mind, Heart, 
is the Inner Life. The essential point is that we always are on 
the wing, like the eagle. The eagle is only on the earth the 
few moments that Nature calls. The East does not wish to 
have any will of its own ; it will not assert itself ; self-assertion 
is in the East a sin and an illusion. But in the West a man is 
despised if he stands for nothing and leaves no monument after 
him. The East and the West here seem to differ radically. Do 
they not? Yet these two activities both meet in volition! Will 
is the name for the core of Man : it is the Inner Life. The essen- 
tial point is that we have will, because in the will both activity 
and passivity meet; both the objective and the subjective. The 
East has discovered the wonderful truths and the laws expressed 
by the words Karma and Eeincamation. In Western philosoph- 
ical language, and to Philosophy, the same truths are known 
under the names of Necessity, Determinism, Cause and Effect; 
hence they are not opposites. The real opposites as discovered 
by the West and thrashed out so thoroughly, that there is no 
more life in them, than in the ideas of Sin and Forgiveness. 
Where the East sees only Necessity and Law, the West sees only 
Freedom. Different they seem, yet they are but two sides of the 
same problem: the Oriental is the impersonal method, the Oc- 
cidental is the personal. Both dissolve in absolute truth and 
remain as a mystery! 

After all has been said that can be said, one Spirit, One 
Reality and One Truth remains, and the main point is that we 
reach the One Truth — that is the Inner Life. And so I might 
continue. There is always a middle Path which leads to the 
Inner Life, a point of consistency in which there is no creed 



THE INNEB LIFE 



nor dogma ; no East or West. All mystics, all who are in wis- 
dom meet in Samadhi, as they call it in the East; Contempla- 
tion or Meditation, as they call it in the West. In Samadhi, or 
Contemplation, all differences disappear. Samadhi or Contem- 
plation is the Inner Life. 

The " Inner Life" to the East is, as I said, Samadhi, and 
to the West Contemplation. More closely denned, the Inner 
Life can in Eastern terms be described as a fullness of Being, 
an ecstatic Bliss and a supreme Knowledge; or in the corre- 
sponding Western terms, Freedom, Virtue, God, three terms 
for forms of mind derived from Kant's philosophy. In classical 
thought they are called the Good, the True, the Beautiful. 
But these descriptions will not help a rationalistic mind. In the 
West, people spurn sentiments, exalted perceptions, transcen- 
dental moods and subjective states. They are considered va- 
garies, whims and signs of degeneration. Negative Spirits, 
those of the order of Mephistopheles, deny the Inner Life. To 
them it is identical with fancy and romance. Only positive 
spirits, those of love, know it and live it. Oh ! what barbarians ! 
Those of the Inner Life have the same right to use that exclama- 
tion as the Greeks of old had, when they called a foreigner a 
barbarian. Oh ! what barbarians all around ! And yet the Ori- 
ental description of Samadhi is a marvel of expression to those 
who know the Inner Life from experience. 

The peculiarity with the Inner Life is this, that it cannot 
be made intelligible to those who have not experienced some of 
it. It is experience, not idealistic reason, that tells us that 
clouds and ice and steam are water. An African under the 
Equator who has never seen ice cannot understand that water 
may become as hard as a stone. He has had no such experience. 
People who live irrationally and in exterior things and who 
have never experienced anything else, deny the truth the mystics 
tell. They are like the fishes who did not know water. You 
know the tale? The fishes asked one another what water was, 
but none could answer. Then one, wiser than the rest, said 
he had been told that in the ocean lived a wise fish who knew 
all, and he proposed that some of them travel to this wise fish 
and ask what water was. And so they did, and the wise fish 
answered them: 

"0 ye who seek to solve the knot! 
Ye live in God, yet know Him not. 



6 THE INNEK LIFE AND THE TAOTEH-KING 

Ye sit upon the river's brink, 
Yet crave in vain a drop to drink. 
Ye dwell beside a boundless store, 
Yet perish, hungry, at the door." 

The Inner Life is a "Wisdom of the other shore' ' and only 
comprehensible to those who have crossed over the river or have 
sailed upon it. Experience, not lecturing, nor hearing a lecture, 
will make it clear. 

"Measure not with words 
Th' immeasurable, nor sink the string of thought 
Into the fathomless : — who asks doth err, 
Who answers errs, — say naught !" 

"Measure not with words.' ' The Inner life is a "temple of 
no-thingness"; no words can enter. In it is understanding, but 
no creed. The Inner Life is a bloodless altar; its cup is Sam- 
adhi, or Contemplation, and its candlestick is insight. The Inner 
Life becomes an experience only to those who know their God 
in the form of mercy, never to those who drink of the waters of 
the lake of the fourfold flood, viz., passion, cleaving to life, false 
views, ignorance. Nay — it is as Whittier puts it: 

"The riddle of the world is understood 
Only by him who feels that Grod is good, 
As only he can feel who makes his love 
The ladder of his faith, and climbs above 
On the rounds of his best instincts." 

It is the general lack of experience in the higher life that 
makes it necessary to use such language as I have used; lan- 
guage that seems to deny my assertion that life is one ; language 
that seems to suggest that an impassable gulf is fixed between 
daily life and the life of the mystic. But it is not so. There 
is a chasm, certainly, between the two, but it is not impassable ; 
we have evidence enough to believe the testimonies of those 
who have come to us and told us about that life. Life is one and 
the chasm is only there for the ignorant, not for the initiate. 

There are good reasons and plenty of evidence that war- 
rants us in believing that those who deny the Inner Life are 
not sincere. A comprehensive study of the psychology of all 






THE INKEB LIFE 7 

races, creeds, and ages, proves that all people in all ages have 
found that man possesses certain high and divine qualities and 
is able to progress through psychic matters into regions of the 
Self, which seemed to be transcendental. Moreover, it is a fact 
that all sound minds crave that inner, that immortal life, which 
alone can give beauty to existence. 

It can only be called Satanic, when some moderns dare to 
assert that the Inner Life, the mystic life, is a product of dis- 
ease, a fungus growth, a degeneration. It is Satanic-false! It 
is Devilish-evil. Is it possible that millions of people have lived 
and fed upon a lie? Is it possible that the sweet- smelling flowers 
which again and again have refreshed humanity were nothing 
but poisonous growth! Nay! Nay! 

Gathering up the various remarks and definitions given, I 
will further illustrate the Inner Life by returning to my illus- 
tration, the bridge and its occult meaning, and thereby I come 
still nearer to the subject. Coming in from one end of the 
bridge, the Middle, or the Inner Life, I spoke of, is seen as the 
"Intelligible World," to use a Platonic term. The "intelligible 
world" is a term that expresses the idea that the world (Kos- 
mos) is intelligible; can be understood by Thought; is Thought; 
is over-sensual or ideal; is reasonable. And the world is not 
' ' this, ' ' the actual, the space and time appearance, but that high 
phenomenon which appears to the mind and never to the senses. 
The "intelligible world" is a mental and spiritual influence that 
corrects our understanding, because it is the plastic power of 
existence, the power that builds, the power that upholds and 
that teaches us. It is the archetypical perception of something 
not in space, yet present everywhere. Something not in time, 
yet perpetually moving everything else. Something not moved, 
but the cause of all movement. Something not measurable, but 
the master of all measure. Something we only perceive when we 
abstract ourselves from everything the senses are related to; 
which the desires crave, and which end in death. 

But this Something which the traveler thus sees in coming 
in from the one end of the bridge is not an airy nothing, an 
astral or unsubstantial something. It is most real; it is the 
real world. It is, still continuing the Platonic imagery, (1) the 
original world, viz., the world in which all things originate; (2) 
it is the typical world, viz., the world of patterns, motives ; and 
(3) the world $f all essential thought and consciousness and 



8 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

reason. It is the world of all the ideas of eternal value that lie 
back of all high and noble thought and action. Plato calls these 
ideals Universals, sometimes Substances, sometimes Numbers 
and sometimes Living Powers, Gods. Plato considered them 
to be indefinite in number and says they are what philosophy 
speaks of as categories. The highest of all ideas is the idea of 
the Good. 

Warning you against the possible error of confounding the 
"Intelligible World" with the astral plane, I now want to im- 
press upon you what this walking in on the bridge means. In 
Platonic language, it means the opening of the noetic degree 
of mind, the degree of supreme wisdom which means an insight 
into the divine mysteries. 

And, now, again further illustrating the Inner Life by re- 
turning to my illustration, the bridge and its occult meaning. I 
will explain what is seen in coming in from the other end of the 
bridge and proceeding towards the Middle. Here the traveler 
is not met by views, visions or sublime ideas. The traveler en- 
ters into an exalted condition; is transfused by sublime pur- 
poses, and, gradually, forgetting self, he is coming into a trans- 
lated and celestial life, a condition of fulness, that excludes all 
evils, desires and cravings of the sense-man. The traveler is 
not merely moving towards the Middle, but is drawn towards 
it, and this drawing is joy and triumph. As the traveler comes 
near the Middle, he experiences a new energy and a fresh power, 
a power that comes from hitherto unopened wells of heart and 
soul. And in that power, the traveler feels a humanity not 
dreamed of, and, a divinity not even imagined, and a spiritual 
commerce between the two, which opens all mysteries of good- 
ness, love and perfection. Numerous mystics testify to that. 

The Sufi mystics speak not only of traveling to God, but 
also of traveling from God, and by traveling from God, they 
mean going into the world full of that love, they have received, 
and, distributing it into the world. Such a traveler from God 
was St. Francis with his infinite brother-feeling extending to 
the animals, and such a traveler was Buddha, and, such a trav- 
eler was Jesus. Filled with divinity and intelligence larger than 
their own, they saw into the life of things and made all things 
holy. The world thus opened is an empire of love. ' l Love feels 
no burden, regards no labors, would willingly do more than it is 
able, pleads not impossibility, because it feels that it can and 
may do all things,' ' said Thomas a Kempis. Lovers of souls 



THE INNEB LIFE V 

are the builders of this empire. Doers of deeds also build ; deeds 
that touch barren hearts and refresh the sick and the blind. This 
world holds no altars, no sacrificial fires. No Urim and Thum- 
min are needed to cover the heart; the heart is the Parousia, 
the Presence, the Fulness. 

These, then, are the two aspects of the Middle of the bridge 
to the Inner Life, seen according to the way you enter the bridge. 

The mystic is now suddenly beyond intelligence and love; 
beyond good and evil; beyond East and West; beyond all con- 
ceptions and actions or any other mental, moral, or spiritual 
state of man, and, beyond man himself. In the Beyond, on "the 
other shore,' ' there lies the Inner Life really, fully; all the other 
conditions, sublime as they are, are, after all, but approaches. 

In Platonic language, the Middle is called the first or fun- 
damental principle, the Good. Ages and ages before Plato the 
Middle was called the Mother-goddess. But in the West they do 
not say the Good, they say God; and they do not say Mother- 
God, they say Father-God, and this change in terms robs the 
Middle, the Inner Life, of its real and sublime character. That 
change in terms robs the Middle of its life and character and 
makes it an abstraction. And the West has paid heavily for 
its mistake. Preachers are now obliged to urge their people "to 
live the life," "to be doers and not hearers,' ' and they are 
obliged to arrange Revivals, hoping thereby to quicken the peo- 
ple. All this decadence and decay of religion is a result of the 
change from reality to abstraction. It must be admitted that 
in the East, the realistic conception of the Middle or the Inner 
Life has led to extremes, and crude materialistic notions and 
worships. The East is as guilty as the West. They are, how- 
ever, both redeemed by their Mystics. Eastern mystics and 
Western mystics are the only souls who have come into true 
and real communion with the Middle, with the Inner Life and 
into the Beyond. 

It is not only the name for the Highest that has caused con- 
fusion, sorrow and sin in the religious world. There is another 
term and image that has been equally troublesome. That term 
is matter. What is matter? (1) As regards science of to-day, 
it must be confessed that it has never seen matter nor weighed 
it, nor in any way got a real hold of it. Atoms, molecules and 
ions are not matter, they are force; force is all science knows 
of. Consequently, science can give only a negative answer. 
Science does not know matter. In other words, there is no such 



10 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

thing as that commonly called matter. There is substance, how- 
ever, but that is not matter, as commonly and ignorantly sup- 
posed. (2) The ancient people never thought of matter in con- 
nection with any physical science. Ever ready with pictur- 
esque figures they meant Mother by matter. So it is in San- 
scrit, so it is in Greek and all other languages, and, whenever 
philosophers have entered upon explanations of what that word 
matter meant. The people who spoke Sanscrit explained it as 
the Universal Womb, as Space, as Aether, as the Measurer of 
the Firmament. They talked eloquently of the Divine Mothers 
where we moderns speak weakly about centers of evolution, 
centers of force. The Mothers, says Proclus, were Meo-njret 

(mestetes), "middles," and "possess mighty power in the uni- 
verse." Pythagoreans called them "towers of Jupiter." Nu- 
merous other terms are known. 

Matter then means generation; and note this: to all the 
ancient people and to all to whom, nowadays, matter means 
Mother, matter is never to be spurned or overcome. Matter to 
them was and is the most glorious term they know of for what 
others call God. This, then, is one signification of "matter," 
and it is the correct meaning of the word, when used by mystics. 

But matter has also another significance, and you will see 
it when I tell you that a Greek, Anaximander, about 600 B. C, 
introduced the term d PX -n (arke) as a term and designation for the 
first and fundamental principle, and as a substitute for Mother. 
But apx-fi is a colorless and anaemic term that stands for an 
abstract conception. Eeally we cannot object to Anaximander 
and his term; they were both Greek and both idealistic. But 
now comes the point, now you shall see where trouble arose. 
Aristotle, about 340 B. C, who understood &pxv to mean merely 
a formative and empty principle and not reality, wished to de- 
stroy it because it had become a power in Platonism, which he 
criticised. He therefore placed over against it another term 
to counterbalance it and to contradict it. That term was W 
which means chaos; it is a realistic term, which means "mud," 
viz., a sort of general mixture of tangible elements. It is this 
conception of chaos, of mud, that has come down to us, while 
the conception Mother has been forgotten. It is ijxa, chaos, mud, 
and since Aristotle's time materialism, moral baseness, we are 
bid in mystic life to overcome. We are not bid to deny the 
Mother. In addition to the Aristotelian conception of imper- 
fection, confusion and low quality, that word Matter has aJsc 



THE INNER LIFE 11 

by Christian philosophy become the bearer of all ideas of moral 
impurity, defects, sins and baseness. These, too, the mystic 
candidate mnst shun. Aristotle and Christianity have certainly 
conferred a benefit upon us by the invention of a new term and 
the clear sense they gave that term, but the pity is, that all kinds 
of fanatics, ascetics, and pseudo-philosophers have completely 
forced the idea of Mother out of the common understanding and 
existence, and, that that, which is to be overcome, that which is 
the outer, and, thus diametrically opposed to inner, is called 
matter. It ought to be called something else and is so called by 
mystics. 

Can this Inner Life be lived in a workaday world like ours f 
This is a question constantly asked, and I constantly answer, 
Yes ! most emphatically. It can be lived and is lived. Life is not 
a snare. I shall in future chapters enter more fully upon this. 

How to reach the Inner Life! I have already used as illus- 
tration: the bridge, and two persons passing over it from op- 
posite ends. I will continue the use of that illustration. It is a 
good one — that which in mystic life is called the Path. I will 
now say that one end of the bridge is called Silence, the other 
Solitude, and that the Middle is called the True Self. Now 
listen ! Let me read you a poem full of suggestion : 

"We sat together in the afterglow 
And talked of earth's old mystery of pain; 
Of wasted toil, of love and anguish vain, 
Of little children born to helpless woe. 
We talked until life seemed like a hideous show, 
And men but slaves under the cruel reign 
Of a blind god, their prayers could not restrain. 
— Then we sat silent ; 

— on the rocks below, 

The careless mountain stream foamed at our feet ; 
Above the dark pine's silhouette hung fair, 
One star, in whose calm radiance earth's despair 
Seemed childish outcry;— life grew sane and sweet; 
For nature's brooding peace was everywhere, 
And love eternal through her pulses beat." 
—Marion Pruyn, in New England Magazine, June, 1897. 

See the bridge ? "We sat silent ' ' ! 



12 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

The first part of this poem has very likely been the experi- 
ence of many in this room, and perhaps that line, ' ' Then we sat 
silent," has also been the experience and has had its natural 
sequence in peace and quiet, in which "life grew sane and 
sweet." If that has been your experience, have you reflected 
upon this, that it was the silence that fell upon you, that brought 
sanity and sweetness? It was silence that brought redemption; 
not talk, not bitterness that did it ; not criticisms of facts of life 
misunderstood, not a negative spirit ivofda; bitter criticism is the 
sin of the world to-day. Sanity and sweetness came when the 
ravens of restless thought had ceased their cawings; ravens, 
rooks, crows and jackdaws bring no peace; they mean putre- 
faction, and so does bitter, senseless talk. Scepticism is not the 
true beginning of philosophy. The true beginning lies in the 
recognition of this, "Be still and know that I am God" (Ps. 46, 
10), and in learning to commune with our own hearts. 

I will now say something about Silence and Solitude, and 
these two words will be the portals, through which, not by which, 
the Inner Life will appear in some of its majesty and beauty. 
It will appear that Silence discovers or unveils the Individual 
Self, and that Solitude discovers or unveils Universal Self. 

What is meant by Silence? 

Negatively, the word means "to shut up," to cease talking. 
Mysticism in its Greek root means to shut up, to close up. Mere 
silence is of course useless. Mutes are not on the Path, because 
they are not able to talk. Positively, Silence is the quiescence 
of a perfectly ordered fulness, viz., after we have become liter- 
ally silent, the fulness of life asserts itself as never otherwise. 
Again, in silence, there is a positive realization of the power of 
presence. A presence, to some, of Beauty : an awakening within 
of an Ideal, longed for, though forgotten. A Beauty, proud and 
austere, yet revealing an immortal face; a Beauty that lifts our 
longings into lovely dreams and the white flames of ecstacy. 
To others, Silence is like the edge of the day when the dawn 
slides slowly along the tops of the pines, and they feel a new 
energy awaken in them, an energy in which they feel, that they 
hold the worlds in the hollow of their hands. To others, Silence 
holds the highest Wisdom borne by the rhythmic currents that 
permeate space. The world calls it inspiration. Others hear the 
divine thunder: "Be still, and know that I am God," and they 
go forth as prophets of the Most High, as witnesses for the sov- 
ereign of the Past, the Present and the Future. "In silence we 



THE INNEB LIEE 13 

become each moment what God already is." Ah, how shall I 
tell those that have not experienced it what silence is? Those 
who know it, understand me. My words can be only like the 
ringing of bells. 

By Silence we come into the true life, into our right place, 
and the immortal Life reigns. We discover our individual self. 
In Silence our normal nature asserts itself and we live ; we do 
not merely think or act, we live, something so utterly foreign, 
that the modern culture-man does not know what it is, neither 
does he understand it. 

What is it to live? It is to experience an intensity which 
fully balances the immensity of the objective world. Full of 
that intensity, that insight, we bear up against any adversity 
like a thunderstorm, which always goes against the wind. Full 
of that intensity and this insight, there can be no ascetic dissi- 
pation of the eternal fires that lie at the root of the soul. That 
intensity, that insight, is the synthesis of all the powers we can 
conceive, and we live neither in fancy, speculation nor in false 
assertion of self. We are one with existence, as that murmurs 
in the forest and sighs in the wave and illumines the mountain 
top and cries on the tongue of the new-born baby or breathes in 
lovers' amorous talk or shouts in archangePs Halleluyah! This 
intensity, this insight, is synthetic; it is all in-clusive, not ex- 
clusive. It will not recognize the theological distinction of saints 
and sinners to have any eternal value. To it, life is one. It 
will not lament on account of the ragged edges of sorrow, nor 
will it merely rejoice in victory. All antagonism, cold as 
morning chill or deadly as night malaria, is dissolved into the 
colors of the rainbow of Hope. That intensity is an assertion 
of Soul and Immortality. It is a realization of Genius, and the 
Over-man. This was the one end of the bridge — Silence ! 

Now let us pass in from the other end, Solitude. The word 
Solitude means exactly what its originator meant it to stand for. 
It means that when ' l things ' ' have been taken away or removed, 
there then remains something " alone," and that something is 
the Ego. Solitude means that the Ego is alone with itself. 

Do not consider loneliness and lonesomeness as synonymous 
terms and conceptions. A lonely life is a forlorn, sad and for- 
saken existence; it is solitary and lacking the souPs craving for 
a companion. A lonely life is usually the result of conflicts with 
societary order or a result of sickness. It is abnormal and de- 
fective. Lonesomeness, on the contrary, is most desirable for 



14 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

strong souls. It means seclusion from the rabble and the multi- 
tudinousness of daily life. It imparts the idea of terror to some, 
to those, namely, who are so little self-centered that they must 
always lean upon somebody. But lonesomeness is not terrible 
or distressing; on the contrary, the wise seek it as an antidote 
against dismay and find it to be a tutelar divinity. All who seek 
the roots of life dig in solitude for them. The "second birth' ' 
is in solitude. The " twice-born " enjoy solitude. It would be 
well for many if they at least could retreat to a u quiet room, ' ' 
like Whittier's: 

"I find it well to come 
For deeper rest to this still room; 
For here the habit of the soul 
Feels less the outer world's control. 
And from silence multiplied 
By these still forms on every side, 
The world that time and sense have known 
Falls off, and leaves us God alone. ' ' 

Yes, Solitude is a state or condition so sublime in character 
that I may say: Solitude is God's secret meeting place with the 
soul. Solitude is as Lenau put it, ' ' The Mother of God in man. ' ' 

The "twice-born" man comes out of Solitude, not out at a 
whist party or from a ball. In Solitude arise all those images 
from our past existences which in this present noisy and pas- 
sionate earth-life have sunk to the bottom. In Solitude there 
is that which Plato called Mvm™ (anamnesis), "Reminiscence," 
a recovery of all past experiences; a fact of the uttermost 
importance in our psychic life, and, a fact that gives great com- 
fort; we know that we live not in vain even if present condi- 
tions are antagonistic. We shall reap the fruits of all our labors, 
all our hopes, longings and tears. 

In Solitude arise not only our own endeavors in and towards 
the greater Life, but also the spectra of all the volitions, good 
and bad, that filled our surroundings while we lived in the past, 
as well as the images of cosmic life. Whatever we lost in our 
studies, the visions of which we do not understand, the beauties 
we failed to perceive, all, all are again available, are again to 
Be enjoyed, are again to be studied; and they all come back in a 
clarified condition and full of an imperial power they never be- 
fore possessed. 



THE INNEE LIFE 15 

You can readily see the rationale of this. They have been 
stripped naked of all the incidental and trivial and their burning 
fire. ^ In utter nakedness they stand before us and call for life. 
By giving them life they become souls, and, we become prophets, 
artists, poets, musicians ! 

Oh, the glorious Solitude! Oh, take solitude and let every- 
thing else go! Pay the price. Do you remember Goethe's con- 
fession? 

" Who never ate his bread with tears, 
Nor through the sorrow-laden hours 
Sat nightly face to face with fears, 
He knows you not, ye heavenly powers. ' ' 

The "heavenly powers' ' here spoken of, are those of soli- 
tude. But these very powers are the ones that made great men 
great. The pay was none too heavy ! They made Goethe great ! 
These powers of solitude and the ordeal we pass through in soli- 
tude brings us face to face with "the Great Alone" and our 
Genius ; nothing else does it. 

In solitude none of the five senses work. They are merely 
doors through which the soul passes in and out; in to itself, 
and out into nature. What I want to emphasize is this : in soli- 
tude, we are neither subjective nor objective ; we root in neither 
extreme ; we are reflective. We are reflective, I say ; we do not 
reflect or think; nay, the Universal, be it the Good or the Beauti- 
ful, finds its true expression through us. In solitude we have, 
neither ears nor eyes; we are perceptive, however! Do you 
perceive the difference? We do not have senses, we are the 
essential of sense. In solitude we are not in manifoldness, we 
are in unity. These images become the expressions for what I 
call reconciliation, which sets us free. Here you have in a nut- 
shell the whole psychology of Solitude. 

See that the emphasis lies upon the withdrawing from ex- 
ternals, from tools, from means, to essentials ! This withdrawal 
must be thoroughly understood, otherwise we shall misjudge and 
perhaps reject the teachings of the mystics about "overcoming'' 
and ' i self -conquest. ' ' 

This subject is the main element in all intelligent life, be it 
religious, artistic or mystic. 

No human being attains freedom without passing through 
this psychic furnace. 



16 THE INNBB LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

No human being can ever create any monumental work with- 
out initiation in this temple. 

No human being, who has not worshipped at this shrine and 
there been baptized in fire and by spirit, can ever understand 
that myriad named power which we see in Nature, Beauty, Good- 
ness and everywhere else. 

Now, in conclusion, examine for yourself and see if I have 
spoken the truth. If I have spoken the truth, it conforms to (1) 
the method of nature ; (2) to the constitution of the human mind; 
and (3) to the testimonies of the Scriptures as they have been 
handed down from age to age. 






w 



THE INNER LIFE 

n. 

ALT WHITMAN, our neglected poet, wrote : 

"Surely, whoever speaks to me in the right voice 
Him or her I shall follow 
As the water follows the moon silently 
With fluid steps anywhere around the Globe." 



And he continues in the same poem ("Voices") : 

"I believe all wait for the right voices, 

I see brains and lips closed — tympans and temples unstruck, 
Until that comes which has the quality to strike and to unclose, 
Until that comes which has the quality to bring forth 
What lies slumbering, forever ready, all in words." 

Like Whitman we all wait to hear the right voice. 

Where is that voice to be heard? The voice that can wake 
"what lies slumbering," where can it be heard? This sentence, 
"what lies slumbering," means a great deal; much more than its 
shortness would suggest. That which lies "slumbering" and 
which is to be awakened is our most essential nature. It is slum- 
bering, viz., it is unknown to ourselves and to others. It is living 
in the innocence of a fool's paradise and in untried peace. The 
voices awaken it to activity and to thought. The awakening is 
sometimes painful and is followed by many trials, We enter 
upon the Path at the awakening. It is the awakening of the right 
voice that makes the difference between one man and another 
and which gives us any value. That is what happens normally. 
The "right voice" may also speak to us while we are in confusion 
or perhaps evil. It is then an awakener in another sense. Of 
that I shall not speak at present. 



18 THE INNEE LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

I will show you two pictures. Be not surprised that I call 
them voices. I have good authority for it. Philo-Judaus, in 
most of his knowledge a good theosophist, and he had the Heb- 
rew Scriptures as his authority, says that Nature is the language 
in which God speaks, "but there is this difference, that while the 
human voice is made to be heard, the voice of God is made to be 
seen ; what God says consists of acts, not of words. ' n 

Let me show you a picture by the Japanese painter, Okio. 
It represents a sunrise on the coast of Japan. All you see is a 
long line of surf tumbling in towards you from out a bank of 
mist ; you see the blood-red disk of the rising sun, and over the 
narrow strip of breaking rollers three cranes are slowly sailing 
north. You do not see the shore nor the ocean itself, it lies still 
sleeping under the mist ; you see only the borderland of the great 
unknown, the breakers, the sun and the cranes. The picture is so 
simple that it would not appeal to most people. But it contains 
the whole philosophy of the Tao-Teh-King of which I shall speak 
in the following chapters. 

You have perhaps seen such a scene on an early morning. 
I have seen it (minus the cranes, to be sure), right outside New 
York, where the Atlantic washes New Jersey's low, sandy shores. 
The view is weird, to say the least. It makes a desolate shore 
look more desolate and strikes you painfully at first. In melan- 
choly you begin to realize that you have before you a picture of 
life. A vast unknown and a misty immensity envelops you, in 
which you perceive only the heaving breath of the ocean as of a 
mighty monster, perhaps dangerous. The breakers speak in un- 
known tongues and the cranes represent the eternal cry of the 
human soul for rest. And really, such is life in one of its 
aspects, the most dreadful one! What a blessing that the ma- 
jority of people do not even suspect the truth ! Only strong souls 
and initiates are allowed to behold the mystery and to see that 
we are surrounded by just such uncertainty — Uncertainty !. The 
Inner Life begins in such realizations. It cannot begin in any 
other way. Yet such a negative beginning is most fruitful. All 
the entangling meshes of a complex life are hindrances. 

The Inner Life is, first of all, simplicity; that is, it is un- 
mixed, homogeneous. Hear a legend. In the glorious days of 
chivalry, there was a knight brave and bold, but stupid as regards 
learning. He never learned more of the "Ave Maria" than the 
words "Hail, Mary blessed among women/ ' but these words he 

*Works. English trans, vol. 2, "Art. on Abraham." 



THE INNEE LIFE 19 

repeated always, in time and out of time. When he died it was 
discovered that lilies sprouted from his grave, and upon opening 
the grave it was found that the lilies grew upon his tongue! 
Sancta Simplicitas! Simple enough! Who would follow him? 
Yet the legend contains eternal truth. A life in simplicity is a 
free life, a life not in bondage either to desire or the objects of 
desire, or blurred by intellectual smoke. A life in simplicity has 
eliminated even the perspectives of the landscape, and stands 
like Fudji-no-yama with the head above the clouds. A life in 
simplicity is a strong life, and ignores the clouds that thunder 
and lighten around its breast, and, it stands firmly on the rock- 
ribbed cosmos. 

It lies so near for anyone that may have been awakened by 
hearing about such a life, to imitate that which has been seen or 
heard, or follow some teacher who promises a short cut to the 
ideals. I would warn such. I would not have anyone copy 
another who has lived that life. I would have you know it from 
your own experience. The Inner Life is original. I warn all 
that "new trees cannot be made of flowers old ones bore," and, 
that one must not lay withered flowers as offering upon the altar. 
We live in a new age, and the Inner Life for us must be lived on 
new lines. It must be, first, natural or true to facts ; secondly, it 
must be human, viz., not ascetic ; thirdly, it must conform to all 
the best results of the lives lived by Mystics and Theosophists 
in the past. The Inner Life is an original life and mankind to- 
day is in as bad a way as it is because there has been copying, 
imitations. Teachers and leaders have taken their gifts in vain 
and sold them for money, and smothered their own consciences 
by the belief that they did mankind good by making it follow 
them and by making it copy their methods. They conferred no 
blessing ; they hampered the inner life not only in their followers, 
but in themselves. I need not mention examples ; church history 
is full of them. Prophets turning autocrats, leaders becoming 
tyrants and heavenly meetings ending in hell, are painted only 
too frequently in history. If I were offered a high seat in 
Heaven for organizing a mystic or Inner Life society, I would 
refuse it. The freedom of a soul is worth more than Heaven. 
The Inner Life is original. It rests on no authority. Tke study 
and exercise of the Inner Life must be as new and as fresh as 
the morning that breaks in upon that shore in Okio's painting, 
and shine in its own light as the sun does in the morning ; every 
morning greeting the mists anew and inviting the cranes to rise. 



2G THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-^EH-KING 

And every soul that aspires to initiation must stand there where 
it sees no shore, but only breakers and the long indefinite line of 
possibilities. 

I will have no man or woman cling to another's thought, be- 
cause "a thought that once has been thought, no man can think 
once more." The Inner, or the Mystic, Life must be and is 
original ; viz., it is a new beginning ; it is fresh from the Original ; 
it is something that never was before, either as light, or as power, 
or motion; it is a new opening into the sanctuary of the Most 
High ; it raises the curtain to new loves and is the genesis of new 
born worlds. A true mystic, or spiritually minded person, one 
who lives the Inner Life, avoids all kinds of ' i systems, ' ' be they 
philosophical, theological, ethical, or anything else. He seeks 
what the Tao-Teh-King calls Wu-Wei, and Wu-Wei is taught by 
the seashore of Okio's painting. The more consistent, the more 
logical the systems appear, the more they are to be shunned. 
Their very consistency proves their lack of life and spirit. Any 
and all systems, be they mystic, theosophic, or handed down by 
angels or otherwise, are only views obtained from one of the ap- 
proaches to the bridge of life. The middle lies equally remote 
from either end, and the middle is the Truth. Of that I spoke at 
length lately. Life is too rich and too full to be forced into a 
Procustes' bed of thought, no matter whose thought or will it 
happens to be. History bears witness to all I say on this subject, 
and, so does Nature. Go into any garden and you shall see for 
yourself and hear the old Mother Nature laugh at you and your 
ideas when you want to force her. Your ideas are not hers. She 
does not work by ' ' system. ' ' She is Herself. 

We ought to analyze into the mysteries of the New Life that 
to-day surges upon the shore of existence. The New Age People 
follow the Stream and they never think of commanding the waves 
of the ocean to respect the royal feet, as did King Canut of Den- 
mark. What do the waves care about royal feet? 

In addition to that which I already have said about Okio's 
painting, I want to say that the main lesson I would point out 
in it, is this : In it there is no clamor, no striving of the senses, 
no lusts, no unreal thoughts. It is Wu-Wei, or the simplicity of 
life; or as the Tao-Teh-King calls it, relaxation from earthly 
activity ; the simple beauty of life flowing as of itself like a river 
according to inner law, but not striving in its own will. The 
painting is a prayer for stillness; that voice which resounds 
everywhere in Nature, and everywhere with Nature's passionate 



THE l^NEK LIFE 21 

intensity. And that voice is "the right voice" to all. It speaks 
always about mystery. Mystery is but another name for ab- 
solute truth, for Originality! 

Now let me show you another picture and ask you to listen 
to another voice. 

I have a picture to show quite as powerful as that of OkLo 
and you shall hear a voice from the abyss as rich as that in the 
Japanese painting. I shall quote a poet, who ought to be the 
banner bearer for Theosophists with poetic veins. I mean him 
who understood so well the occult there is in the landscape : 

' ' The silence that is in the starry sky, 
The sleep that is in the lonely kills, ' ' 

and who realized more powerfully than anybody else that 

"The meanest flower that blows can bring 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.' ' 

I mean Wordsworth, to whom nature was no puzzling me- 
chanism, but a luminous organism, a personal influx:. Words- 
worth, of whom Shelley said he had awakened ' ' a kind of thought 
in sense"; Wordsworth, to whom a sunrise was the time of 
spiritual consecration ; Wordsworth, who liked to stand 

"Beneath some rock, listening to notes that are 
The ghostly language of ancient earth;" 

Wordsworth, who had communed with 

"Nature's self, which is the breath of God." 

I shall read to you a short passage from the first book of the 
"Excursion." I am very fond of it. It is a voice that speaks 

" .... truths that wake 
To perish never, — 

Which neither listlessness nor mad endeavor, 
Nor all that is at enmity with joy, 



Can utterly abolish or destroy." 



22 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

This is the passage : 

" . . . . for the growing youth 
What soul was his, when, from the naked top 
Of some bold headland, beheld the sun 
Eise up, and bathe the world in light? He looked — 
The solid frame of earth 
And ocean's liquid mass, in gladness lay 
Beneath him : — Far and wide the clouds were touched 
And in their silent faces could he read 
Unutterable love. Sound needed none, 
Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank 
The spectacle : Sensation, soul and form, 
All melted into him ; they swallowed up 
His animal being ; in them did he live, 
And by them did he live ; they were his life. — 
In such access of mind, in such high hour 
Of visitation from the living God, 
Thought was not ; in enjoyment it expired. 
No thanks he breathed ; he prof erred no request ; 
Eapt into still communion that transcends 
The imperfect offices of prayer and praise, 
His mind was a thanksgiving to the power 
That made him; it was blessedness and love!" 

This is 

i ' An Ohphic song indeed, 
A song divine, of light and passionate thoughts, 
To their own music chanted/ ' 

as Coleridge wrote the night after he had heard ' i The Prelude. ' ' 
It is a voice that speaks without sound ; a voice that does away 
with the animal being; a voice that does not need thought for 
translation ; it is immediate ; without means it transfigures sensa- 
tion, soul and form. In rapt communion the soul transcends 
both prayer and praise, and, becomes blessedness and love ; be- 
comes one with glory, one with nature. In ' ' The Prelude ' ' where 
Wordsworth sings of another magnificent morning, he confesses : 

' ' My heart was full ; I made no vows, but vows 
Were then made for me ; bond unknown to me 
Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly, 
A dedicated Spirit." 



THE INNEK LIFE 23 

How mean does not the every-day treadmill seem in the 
light of such solemn experiences? And how contemptible the 
waste most people are guilty of ; they waste the golden moments 
in bed and neglect the morning on the mount. Hence they do 
not expand and know not its beatitudes. A traveller once asked 
a Hopi Indian, whom he saw praying half an hour as he stood 
at his door looking over the mesa, what he said. The Indian an- 
swered : ' ' Nothing ! ' ' He said nothing — but something filled him. 
What? the Great Spirit filled him with bright presence and a 
calm sank down into his heart ; a calm in which he perceived the 
eternal, and the horizon of his heart widened. He felt some- 
thing akin to himself. And such is true prayer. He heard ' ' the 
right voice.' ' 

Now, you have heard what Whitman called "the right 
voice/' and these two, Wordsworth and the Indian, who "fol- 
lowed as the water follows the moon silently"; Wordsworth, the 
man from the sea of the nations, and the Indian, the power of the 
mountain fastness and the Open. Do you know the soul of either 
of these? or their experiences? Did you ever go out into the 
free, the Open, where "the right voices" may be heard? or did 
you fear and hide in the great city with its confusion of tongues, 
or, did you, perhaps, lose the key to your own heart? 

Hear "the right voice": 

"Love thy God, and love Him only, 
And thy breast will ne'er be lonely. 

In that One Great Spirit meet 

All things — mighty, grave and sweet. 

Mortal, love that Holy One, 
Or, dwell forever alone — alone!" 

It is not necessary that you or I should retire to the jungle, 
the hermit's cell, or forsake kith and kin,in order to listen to "the 
right voice." Nay— the sea, the mountain, and your own heart, 
speak in the right voice, if we but listen. The sea and the moun- 
tain we have always with us. Every woman is a sea; every man 
is a mountain, and the heart throbs in both. As I said, it is not 
necessary that we should retire to the jungle, as they do in In- 
dia and elsewhere. A large city like New York is a jungle, and 
as full of all the dangers, horrors and sublime opportunities 



24 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

as any mountain fastness. As for myself, I live in it and look 
upon New York City as a jungle. I can testify that I do not lis- 
ten to the chattering monkeys; and the wild animals, though 
they growl and threaten, never hurt me. I let great popular 
excitements pass by like an electric storm in the forest, and I 
stay unaffected in my meditations. I have my solitary room and 
there I find myself undisturbed in my spiritual exercises. Yet, 
I am no recluse. I do my duty as a citizen and hold men's 
fate in my hands as much as any ruler of states. I do not wear 
the mendicant's robe, nor do I carry his bowl, nor do I affect 
the manners of a pietist. Of what use? Why should you not do 
likewise? The " right voice' ' tells you to do likewise! 
To return to the voices: 

"Of mountain splendor and the mobile sea, 
Which are most Mother Nature's in sooth I cannot tell" 
(After John Chadwick) 

but this I know, female souls seek the mountain and masculine 
souls seek the sea. 

' ' Two voices are there ; one is of the sea, 
One of the mountains; each a mighty voice." (Wordsworth) 

The one, that of the sea, surges and sinks back again — a 
sublime continuance ! And thus it has been since time was. The 
others — the mountains — were ploughed up one day in an earth- 
quake and "made the haunts of beauty; the home elect of grace; 
Nature spreads mornings on them, and sunsets light their face," 
and that is why masculine souls love the sea and female souls 
seek the mountains. And by drawing these souls to the moun- 
tain and to the sea, Mother Nature speaks in the "right voice" 
to each; but alas! how often does not the female soul become 
restless and cry 

"Away! I will away, far away, 
Over the mountains high: 
Here I am sinking lower each day. ' ' 
(Bjornson) 

Alas! I have also heard unfaithful masculine souls com- 
plain that they never fully understood the mystic song of the 



THE INNER LIFE 25 

sea and that dreams enervated them. They wearied of seeing 
the sun retire and of sleeping behind his purple skirted robe. 
B . . And why is this? Ah! unfaithfulness! The masculine 
is as restless as the feminine. They are both unwilling to listen 
to Wu-Wei, to "inactive absorption into Tao." They fear to 
be lost. They will rather trust themselves. They have no faith, 
though Tao, which is faith, constantly speaks assuringly. Have 
no fear! The Inner Life does not kill either sense, understand- 
ing, feelings or anything human! Only shadows vanish and 
false activity is as naught. Will you not try to practice thinking 
without doubting; speaking without duplicity; acting without 
attachment ? 

Again: 

I have heard of the wonderful mountains, Fudji-no-yama, 
of Alborgi, of Kaf and Meru, and other heaven-towering moun- 
tains, real and mythical, and I have felt the uplift and I have 
heard a female voice sing rejoicing: 

"I stand on high, 
Close to the sky, 
Kissed by unsullied lips of light ; 
Fanned by soft airs 
That seem like prayers 
Fleeting to God through ether bright. ' ' 

(C. G. Ames.) 

And I have heard the heart's meditation and triumph: 

"All alone on the hilltop 
Nothing but God and me ! 

# # * # # 

And things immortal cluster 
Around my bended knee." 

Ah, yes ! So I have heard the song— but silence and I have 
also heard the same heart fret and fume, wishing for the ab- 
sence of desire; crying for a light that did not burn, and asking 
that the voice would cease to urge— as if the flame which the 
Mother had started was not a holy flame! What of it, if the 
heart burned away! It is so the Mother's way. Does she not 
know? 



26 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

Again: 

Masculine souls have exhausted their strength in lyric songs 
to the sea, its mighty breasts and the refreshing baths and the 
wild waves ' ecstacy — but they, too, have been ungrateful and 
with tears repented and said "illusions dwell forever with the 
wave." Some have later on seen their folly and come lack to 
the waters of life. Those that did not throw their repentance 
to the winds and return to the ocean of love will lose their life 
if they ever come near the shore. Such renegades are never 
taken back. They have sinned against themselves and must be 
made over. 

This is what I have heard on the mountain and on the sea- 
shore and I have translated my visions and the voices as best I 
could. But there is much mystery left. You must understand 
that there are other seas besides the ocean; and other moun- 
tains besides rocky prominence. They all have voices — some to 
be heard, others to be seen. Perhaps you have read other in- 
scriptions on the mountains, and heard other musical notes 
scored on the staff of the shore. If so, we understand each 
other ! How shall we teach the others to hear and to see I 

Okio's picture speaks in low and solemn voice. Words- 
worth's in high and triumphant notes. To those who seldom 
commune with nature, they will appear so remarkable that they 
will talk about them and write about them in the dailies and 
magazines. And they will consider them something special they 
have been lucky enough to see. But to those who live with Na- 
ture, these visions and voices are not exceptional ; they are com- 
mon, i. e., they lie open to the perception and enjoyment of all, 
and always, because Nature is not exclusive, but quite lavish in 
her goodness. A youthful and poetic mind would be apt to mis- 
interpret the symbolism and richer glory of these two pictures 
and miss their real significance. A prosaic and materialistic 
mind will, of course, remain ignorant of the spiritual values of 
such experiments. To a lover of Nature, who is one with her, 
they will be resonant with the deep things of Divinity ; and such 
a lover will feel an interpenetration of all Nature with his or her 
own being, and he or she will come out of the experience feeling 
transformed and knowing that something transcendental has 
visited them. And this is Tao's work. I cannot define it any 
clearer, but you can experience it and thus know it better. 

When I now turn from objective nature to the subjective 
nature within, I also find two voices and they speak loud in the 



THE INNEB LIFE 27 

halls of the learned. And these voices are called Idealism and 
Realism, or Platonism and Aristotelianism. Yon have all heard 
them, though yon may not have named them as I did. Bnt hav- 
ing heard them, have yon in their voice — either the one or the 
other — heard the note of yonr own mind? It is imperative that 
yon shonld hear that note, otherwise the voice is not to yon any 
right voice, bnt merely scholastic dnst and noise. Which of the 
voices speaks pre-eminently to the mascnline sonl and which to 
the feminine, I leave yon to answer for yourself. Yon have a 
guide in what I have said abont the voices of the sea and the 
mountain. 

Those two voices I just now called Idealism and Realism; 
Platonism and Aristotelianism, were heard at an earlier day in 
Greece and expressed by Fire-Philosophers on one side and the 
Eleatics or Philosophers of Being on the other. I mention these 
because they are two voices which are heard wherever and 
whenever men try to form their ideas of the surrounding world, 
and, there is an affinity between the Fire philosophy and some 
minds in my audience, and, there is an affinity between the phil- 
osophy of Being and other minds in my audience. Some of yon 
can understand the mystery of existence if you consider it un- 
der the aspect of eternal change, a coming and a going, a breath- 
ing in and a breathing out. And such an understanding is most 
valuable and most necessary for the formation of character. 
Others cannot understand what Not-Being is and how loss, 
decay and death can be necessary and valuable elements in the 
cosmos. They demand, according to the voice that speaks in 
them, permanency and rest. They, too, need to learn all details 
about their voice in order to build character, different as they 
are. I need not elaborate or say any more about these two 
voices. They will readily be seen to correspond to the sea and 
the mountain voices which I have described in detail. If it is 
as Aristotle has it, that some men become good by nature , others 
by training, others by instruction, then I say, that those who are 
good by nature always and spontaneously hear those voices of 
the sea and the mountains and the other voices. The others 
learn in the course of life to listen to them, and both become one 
with the voices, when they have understood them. 

Now about the voice within. The "right voice" speaks also 
in our Inner Man. And that voice is called by many names and 
described, as is natural, very differently, but we never have any 
difficulty in knowing what is meant, when we hear the name. 






28 THE INNEE LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

This many-named voice, or power, or degree, of the Inner 
Man, which we aim at getting hold of ; that degree which we de- 
sire to open and which we wish to develop, is described in vari- 
ous ways, and some of these descriptions I will now give you. 

First of all I will give my own description. I call it the eter- 
nal pattern or plastic power in us and mean by that, that it is 
the rule and regulation inborn or given to all men. According 
to it, we know the eternal ways and methods. It always speaks 
as "the right voice" and we are happy when we listen. I came 
originally to the understanding of it by pondering upon the 
meaning of the statement in Genesis, that we are made in "the 
image of God." I therefore also call it "the image of God." 
Everyone of you have it in you. It is that ideal you carry in 
you and which you wish to come up to. That ideal you judge by, 
when you occasionally admit to yourself and others that you do 
not come up to the standard. It is there and nobody can plead 
ignorance as an excuse for disobedience or for not attempting 
seriously the Higher Life. It may not be wide awake, but it is 
there and admonishes us, even if we will not admit it. Plato 's 
description of di/d^tm (anamnesis) or reminiscence is in part 
a very good analysis. You know Plato perhaps. I will not 
speak of it in detail. But Plato 's description is defective in my 
opinion, in this, that it only recognizes ideals of a former exist- 
ence, and that is a limitation. I think that this pattern, I men- 
tion, is much more than a reminiscence; it precedes anything 
that can be called so; it is eternal, and, moreover, it not only 
quickens us, as Plato says, but it commands us ; that is, it is or 
becomes a constitutional part of us, and as such it is or becomes 
ourselves. It is not a sunset, but a sunrise and a perfect day. 
It is not a longing ; it is a realization. It is a compelling voice. 
It is a voice, which, when we hear it, we follow readily and in 
joy, because we know we cannot go astray. How could we? Am 
I not my own voice, aim and purpose? Am I not myself? I am; 
at least when I am on the Path ! 

I will now give some descriptions from various sources. 
Schelling was a German philosopher of modern times and full 
of theosophical and mystic element. It was he who said, that 
the Divine sleeps in the stone; rises up in the plant; moves in 
the animal and opens its eyes in man; Schelling said: "In us 
there is a secret and mysterious and wonderful power, by means 
of which we may retire from the mutations of time, and into our 
inner self, stripped of all that which comes to us from the out- 



THE INNEE LIFE 29 

ward things, and, there under the form of unchangeableness, 
gaze upon the Eternal. This vision is the innermost and most 
genuine experience and upon it depends and from it flows all we 
know or imagine of the supernatural world." Next to Schelling's 
expression I will place the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, also 
full of theosophy and mysticism. And he put it down as his ex- 
perience: "Though you trod every path, you could not find the 
limits of the soul, so deep in its essence." 

Well, is that sense of the Infinite wide awake in you? has 
it become Thought in you as it did in Wordsworth? Does it 
sound as a voice you would follow like the voice Whitman spoke 
of? Have you perceived it as the sound of your soul, as did the 
mediaeval mystics? 

Schleiermacher, a preacher, akin to those already men- 
tioned, in speaking of the intuition said : " In it there is contact 
of the universal life with the individual life. It is the holy wed- 
lock of the universe with the incarnated reason. . . . It is 
immediate, raised above all error and misunderstanding; you 
lie directly on the bosom of the Infinite. In that moment you are 
its soul. Through one part of your nature you feel, as your own, 
all its powers and its endless life." With this power we see into 
the nature of things, and, to borrow phraseology from Platon- 
ism, it describes the true home of the soul to be the supra-sensi- 
ble, supra-celestial, world of true Being, where, pure, incorpo- 
real and without passion, the soul leads a holy and eternal life, 
contemplating the beauty and the excellent harmony of ideas, 
and, where the soul beholds the indivisible and immutable arche- 
types of the fleeting phenomena, that flow in multitudinous 
commingling before the dazzled senses. 

Ah! For such experiences "the true home" of the soul — 
"to contemplate the beauty" of eternity — "the archetypes" or 
the essence of things — is it not worth while ? Shall we not now 
begin, those of us who have not yet realized this "pure incor- 
poreal world," which is "without passions" — those of us who 
still live in those terrible earthquakes that rend this fragile 
frame of ours to pieces? 

Well, friends, "while the eternal ages watch and wait" for 
some of us to come up higher, let me quote from others who, in 
"high seriousness," have felt and spoken of that "awful shad- 
ow," of the "unseen power, which floats among us" visiting us 
"as summer winds that creep from flower to flower." 



30 THE INNEE LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

Legends and Folklore are full of picturesque tales and sym- 
bolical narratives. Here are a couple of examples : 

Boethius (about 470 A. D.) tells us in his book "Consola- 
tions of Philosophy, ' ' how he, while in prison and in exile, was 
visited by a woman of reverend countenance, with glowing eyes, 
penetrating beyond the common power of human eyes, of bril- 
liant complexion, and inexhaustible strength, though full of 
years. Her stature was difficult to describe; sometimes she ap- 
peared to retain it within the common human measure, some- 
times she lifted her head so high that it looked into the very 
heaven and was lost to the gaze of the beholder. This visitor 
was Wisdom. Who would not like such a visit, even though she 
should speak reprovingly as she did to Boethius, because she 
found him busy with classical poetry, neglecting heavenly Wis- 
dom. What business had Boethius (or have we) with anything 
else than the eternal? Yes, such a visit would be worth a whole 
life's study as it was to Boethius. The moment he realized who 
she was, he knew instantly that all his studies had not revealed to 
him what Man was, and he had to confess it to her. But, humble 
he was and his confession was rewarded. In free and lightsome 
song she bid him cast away grief, and, from that moment she 
was his good genius, teaching him the true philosophy and the 
mystic union with God. She was his own Soul. 

In a Shawnee tale, from our American plains and told by 
Schoolcraft, I find a parallel to this story. The story is called 
"The Celestial Sisters " and treats of a celestial sister, a 
daughter of the stars, who comes down to see "how the game is 
played by the mortals ' ' and is captured by Waupee, ' ' the White 
Hawk"; she becomes his bride and thereby his regenerator. 
She brings him in upon the starry plains, where his second or 
celestial marriage is celebrated. I cannot here give more of the 
story. I have elsewhere told it and commented at length upon 
it. It is a marvelous story and richer than the Greek of Apule- 
ius about Cupid and Psyche. 

Of course, Folklore contains many other similar stories. 
They are all poetic renderings of the same truths which I Lave 
spoken of. In numerous Folklore stories do we hear of celestial 
or mystic visitors that come to free a soul in bondage. In some 
of them we also hear warnings to the one who receives the visit, 
and these warnings are to beware of rudeness and curiosity. 
I will give you an illustration, not Folklore, however, but just as 
good and to the point. It is a little story once told by a teacher 



THE INKEK LIFE 31 

of mine, Professor Basmus Nielsen, of Copenhagen University. 
The story is about a student, a lady. We see her at her study 
table. She has ink on her ringers ; surely a proof that she is lit- 
erary. She is not yet a graduate, but soon she will be. See how 
she arms herself. Look at this table of studies; seven foreign 
languages, history, geography, music, singing, drawing, paint- 
ing, natural history and physics, mythology, perspective and 
mathematics, fortification and astronomy. For a moment she 
rests and takes her attention from an essay in astronomy on 
which she is at work. Suddenly it occurs to her that there is 
something wanting on the study-plan. Says she: " There must 
be something they call the Inner Life. I can learn so much else, 
surely I can learn that, too. It would be well to do so ; it is al- 
ways well to know something that others do not know. I wish 
I could find a teacher in the Inner Life. As suddenly as this 
soliloquy had sprung up, as suddenly there appeared in the door 
an elderly sage-looking man, who smiled upon her with compas- 
sion. "Well, who are you?" He was, he said, a teacher in the 
Inner Life and offered to give her lessons. What are your 
terms?" He teaches without money or compensation and is al- 
ways at service. "What?" says she, "without money or com- 
pensation, ' ' and ' ' always at service ? ' ' She is astonished ; looks 
out of the window and — when she turns back, he is gone ! "Hah! 
what is that like? He teaches "without money or compensa- 
tion" and is "always at service" and can't even wait while one 
looks out of the window. Wonder if the Inner Life is logical? 
By the way, I forgot to ask about recommendations. The in- 
cident was soon forgotten and our student turned to the astro- 
nomical essay. What she later found out about the teacher and 
the Inner Life is not known. But this, my listener might learn, 
that the Inner Life is immediate, sudden, spontaneous and free 
of cost. Do not look out of the window ; do not hesitate ! Do 
not ask for recommendations. 

Not individuals only make such grave mistakes. Westerri 
humanity has made them again and again. I can supplement 
my teacher's, the Professor's story by showing you the parallel 
to his story in history. The history of philosophy furnishes it. 
Greek Thought degenerated into materialism in Democritus and 
his successors, and, in Socrates and the Sophists it lost itself 
entirely in self-conceit. A reaction set in with Plato, and in the 
Post- Aristotelian thought Greece almost recovered itself. Neo- 
Platonism was full salvation. Neo-Platonism was mystic and 



32 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

theosophic wisdom, that destroyed all self-sufficiency and taught 
men how to find release from the world and the flesh by an in- 
nermost activity of soul and in ecstacy. (Down and up !) 

Men lapsed. Night set in again, and, in the next and follow- 
ing ages the transcendental period established by Plotinos and 
his school lost entirely its vital force and became mere scholas- 
ticism in the Church's theology, and transformed itself into a 
doctrine of will, such as is manifested in St. Augustine. These 
two represent a new fall and degeneration once more. The Dark 
Ages, the Middle Ages, follow and the Inner Life is lost sight of. 
But redemption comes at last. It breaks forth in the Eenais- 
sance and Eeformation and comes to its full power in theosoph- 
ists like Jacob Boehme and all those wonderful men, such as 
Eckardt, Suso and Tauler, who all live entirely in the depths of 
the soul. (Again down and up !) 

Once again after a time delusions blind the human mind 
and conceit gets the upper hand. The supremacy of mind and 
spirit in men like Descartes becomes mere rationalism. English 
empiricism crops up as an antidote, but on the same low level 
and, between the two, the human mind is again darkened and 
comes near its death. A revival begins in Emanuel Kant's re- 
assertion of the spiritual principle, and in the works of the so- 
called Faith-Philosophers, Lessing, Jacobi and Herder. But the 
real resurrection takes place when the mystics and theosophs 
once again come upon the scene. Eeinhold asserts "the prin- 
ciple of Consciousness" and lays emphasis upon the fact that, 
thought always points beyond itself. He therefore demands a 
higher unity than thought can furnish, and that opens the door 
for mysticism. Fichte and Schelling both end in Theosophy and 
become the saviors of many. Finally comes Schiller with his 
mystic doctrine of art as the redeeming element from all scep- 
ticism and materialism of the age. At the same time such 
Romanticists as Novalis dream and talk only about the inner- 
most essence of things. All this, together with that vigorous 
protest we call the French Eevolution, shake off all trammels; 
and from now on the individual is free again to pursue its own 
course. Thus once more did the mystic powers that lie at the 
root of the human tree revive it and give it new growth. _ (Down 
and up again!) 

Has it continued to grow according to the promises of the 
beginning? Nay, it must be admitted that the negative forces, 
the selfish powers of the knights, kings and priests and their 



THE INNEB LIFE 



33 



servants, have succeeded only too well in strangling the new 
growth. And science, which ought to have been a liberating 
angel, has only too often and too well furnished the gross and 
stupid parts of man with indulgences and physical means for 
enjoyment. Everywhere we again see decay and indifference. 
Here and there only, and, in isolated cases, have theosophists 
and mystics arisen with healing on their wings, and upon them 
depend a revival and restoration as it has depended upon them 
in the past, as I have just shown you. Will you, all of you, 
each one individually, come to the rescue? There is no better 
way to promote one's own welfare than by working for others. 
All the voices, that are " right voices,' ' all call upon us to do 
something for the neighbor, and, they all say that we can ac- 
complish nothing of ourselves, nothing in isolation. The future 
belongs to us if we will work! And, now, in this chapter you 
have heard two voices in the pictures I have shown. The first 
voice speaks in two ways, by the melancholy note of the sea 
and by the joyous triumph of the mountain. The second voice 
is that of the human heart. All three are voices of Tao, of 
which you shall hear more in other chapters. All three are One 
voice, and that voice speaks without sound, and, that One voice 
is also Tao. Of that you shall also hear more later. To the 
three spiritual voices answer four mundane voices, and of these 
I shall speak at the end of this course of chapters. Some of 
you will understand that I refer to the Triad and the Quater- 
nary. Tao is The Word or "The Silent Speaker,' ' and the little 
book, "The Voice of the Silence,' ' says, on page 3, that the soul 
must be "united unto the silent speaker" before she can com- 
prehend "the mystery." This teaching applies to all I have 
said to-day. And to hear the voice of the silence that speaks 
without sound, it is necessary one should learn what it is to 
fall away from the phenomenal and into the Higher Self, and 
thus become one with the "Silent Speaker." 

I have now spoken about voices, such as they come to 
us in Nature and in the Mind, and my words may possibly have 
been pleasant to some of you, and my illustrations may have 
been interesting, but I shall have missed my object entirely if 
my words have not translated themselves into soundless voices, 
and if the "Silent Speaker" in you has not united with you. 

Let me hope ! 



MYSTICISM 

m. 

THOUGH I have spoken twice about the Inner Life, intro- 
ductory to my chapters on the Tao-Teh-King, there is 
still a great deal to be said about it, all of which will be 
helpful in the study of that book. Upon some points 
most important in that respect, I shall touch now and hope you 
will be as happy to hear them as you were with the two other 
talks. It is especially about the Inner Life in its relationship to 
Mysticism that I would speak. The two are not identical as some 
might think. I can define their relationship very readily. If I 
divide mystics in two large groups and include in the first all 
pillar-saints, hermit-fakirs of the deserts, Harpokrates and his 
kind, epileptic miracle-mongers, flagellants, mendicants and 
other beggars who pretended to sanctity, but really were sus- 
picious characters, not to say criminals, then — these are not 
Inner Life people. They ought never to have been called mys- 
tics. The other group will be composed of saints, yogis, and all 
those who come under the category of Inner Life people, such 
as I have denned the Inner Life in the two foregoing chapters, 
and, as I shall define it now. 

In beginning a study of the Tao-Teh-King and Taoism it 
is well to emphasize that all Inner Life takes its color and terms 
from its environment. The Inner Life is always Mysticism, but 
its forms vary according to the soil in which it grows, the atmos- 
phere it breathes and the geographical zones in which it finds 
its home, and it is always adapted to the historic period in which 
it appears. You will remember from my last lecture the periods 
I pointed out and how the mystics came in as the saviors. The 
reason for the variation of form is this, that the Mystic Life is 
always more or less of a protest against existing conditions of 
the actual life in the midst of which it appears. It is only in 
forms of expression that it varies so much. Its core is always 



MYSTICISM 35 

the same, and mystics of all ages and climes understand each 
other even if they do not speak each others languages. Thus in 
Brahminism Mysticism is ritualistic and must be studied in its 
symbolical actions. In Buddhism it is nihilistic and must be 
guessed from its hyper-transcendental forms. In Mohamme- 
danism it is forbidden and hides behind Koranic doctrines or in 
poetic and naturalistic lyricism such as found among the Sufis. 
In Christianity it indulges in extravagant ascetic practices and 
monastic enthusiasm. In Judaism it has revealed a wonderful 
philosophy, the Kabbalah, which is a transcription of the divine 
life as it flows in human arteries and veins and as it reveals itself 
in the cosmic order of the universe. In our own day Hasidism 
or Jewish pietism in the form of sentiment and emotional faith 
is Mysticism of purer water. In China, Mysticism is closely con- 
nected with the social-political order of the democratic forms 
of the empire. Something which the future chapters will show. 

In connection with the various forms of it which I have just 
mentioned, many individuals and books come before us and re- 
quire close attention. In Brahminism the Upanishads claim it. 
In Buddhism it is the person of the Buddha. In the Kabbalah 
it is the Zohar and the Sepher Jetzirah we go to. In Hasidism 
we realize that when we look on material things, we really gaze 
at the image of the Deity. In China it is the Tao-Teh-King and 
its author Laotzse, and, in Christianity it is the master-mystic, 
Jesus, and his disciple Paul. These general remarks are suf- 
ficient to show, that the Inner Life is not an abstraction or an 
airy nothing, but something historical and real, though at the 
same time it is entirely removed from history and the actual 
world. 

In studying Mysticism or forms of the Inner Life under any 
of these conditions, we repeatedly come in upon the ground oc- 
cupied by philosophy and religion, because these two together 
with mysticism are the three mental, moral and spiritual factors 
in human life, 

" These three on men all gracious gifts bestow.' ' 

But their fields are nevertheless distinct and the three must 
be kept part in our studies. Philosophy will grasp the Universal 
in a conception. Eeligion will devote itself to the service of the 
Universal. Mysticism, or the Inner Life, includes both and 
transcends both because it lives in the Whole, not in any part. 



36 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

It will, as Echardt put it, have Divinity, not merely God. It 
must also be borne in mind throughout our studies, that Mystic- 
ism is The Inner Life, and of the Inner Life I have already 
spoken. Being the Inner Life, Mysticism is not Occultism, nor 
anything that comes under that heading in the catalogue of the 
learned societies. To be sure, numerous occult subjects con- 
stantly come up and crave our attention for the time being and 
their relation to The Inner Life must be settled. Occultism, prop- 
erly understood, is a science of the hidden workings of Nature 's 
powers and Nature's methods. The majority of people do not 
need occult studies, and such studies would be injurious to most. 
But all people need the Inner Life, the development of soul 
powers. Of what use in the bettering of life is a knowledge of 
manvantaras and pralayas, or, the ebb and flow of divine life, if 
the student does not live according to such knowledge ; if he does 
not live as Shamsy, who cried out: "From the bosom of Self, I 
catch continually a scent of the Beloved. ' ' 

Mysticism or the Inner Life is not the same as Spiritism; 
in fact it stands sharply over against the delusions that hide 
under that name. But we meet again and again mystics who 
have been in some relationship or other to angels and devils, 
and their records about such intercourses must be carefully 
sifted. 

There is Mysticism or Inner Life in Art and in much of our 
literature, in poetry, for instance. The artist feels it as the 
plastic power of his art ; the writer works by it as his formative 
energy ; to the scientist it is the mystic fire in his test-tube, that 
subtle cosmic power which he neither can weigh nor measure. 

Here a warning against bias is needed. An artist or a 
scientist may be good Inner Life people though they do not 
speak in the customary language of most mystics. Do not con- 
demn anybody because they do not use the same terminology as 
you do. I see a most exalted Nature-Mysticism in Michael An- 
gelo's so-called "Aurora," the figure on the monument over 
Lorenzo di Medici. They did not bury Tyndal in Westminster 
Abbey, as they ought to have done. When he advocated "imag- 
ination" in his famous Belfast address, he spoke from out of 
the Inner Life. In my opinion, in the Alps he had discovered what 
the image-making power is. He had seen, what Frederick Eob- 
ertson called so beautifully, "God's feeling and imagination. ' ' 
Friends ! There is much more Mysticism and many more ele- 
ments of the Inner Life in the world and in you, than you know. 



MYSTICISM 37 

Asceticism is rampant in the history of Mysticism, but a 
mystic or a theosoph is not necessarily ascetic. Buddha found 
that the ascetic method was a miserable failure, as regards the 
attainment of the freedom and knowledge he sought. Jesus may 
in his youth have lived among Essenes and Therapeutae and 
applied the ascetic method, we do not know. But this is certain, 
in the Gospels he is no ascetic, and is blamed by his enemies 
therefore. Here are two mystics, two who lived the Inner Life, 
and whose likeness none of us have reached. Neither of them 
teach asceticism. They teach self -conquests ; they preach over- 
coming; they give examples upon living not swayed or domin- 
ated by passions — all of which we must learn, and learn to prac- 
tice. They teach especially against making bad Karma ; against 
fatal entanglements, and they advocate the simplicity of the lil- 
lies and children. Though Buddha and Jesus denied asceticism 
both Buddhism and Christianity, however, have upheld asceticism 
in its worst forms. Such master Mystics and Inner Life men as 
Buddha and Jesus are not denying the cosmic energy there is in 
life, both objectively and subjectively. On the contrary they 
work in harmony with that cosmic energy, and it is for us to 
learn to do likewise. Most people must, however, overcome 
much and fight many battles against themselves before they are 
ready for that simplicity which these two represent or even be- 
fore they are ready to acknowledge these two as types of the 
Inner Life. Buddha and Jesus deny the irrational workings of 
that energy when it appears in our human frame, when it flames 
like fire broken loose, or like a raging tempest, or as a subtle 
poison in envy and hatred. Cosmic energy can be a savor of life 
and a savor of death ; it is a savor of life to the strong, to him 
who is not working for self; it is a savor of death to him who 
lives only for self, and, to him and all who are ignorant of the 
nature of cosmic energy. 

The mystic is no finished product ; he is simply a traveller 
on the Path, and as such he is learning to "overcome." And 
what is it we must overcome? To what extent must we all be 
ascetics? I give as an answer in part the following: The mystic, 
in Western terms, "seeks union with God" and nothing else. 
To translate this phrase, "union with God" into the lowest 
terms, I say, it means "to come into order," "to live ration- 
ally." To attain such "order," such "reason," we must over- 
come all our crotchets, desires and idiosyncracies, whatever they 
may be. Not the power which misapplied or run wild becomes 



38 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

crotchets, desires and idiosyncracies. The power is all right, 
but our application is wrong. This is the simplest way to in- 
dicate what it is to " overcome. ' ' The subject can not be stated in 
lower terms. Of course, "overcoming" thus far denned is only 
a beginning. It is followed by numerous other degrees, but of 
these I need not speak at present. I will, however, touch upon 
some features of "overcoming" which are of primary import- 
ance : of total resignation, of self-denial, carrying the cross. In 
one word, and in a mystic phrase : we must stand naked in the 
presence of Self before the real mysteries will reveal themselves. 
We must be "naked" in order to enter the Path to the Inner 
Life ; free from all those irrational and passionate forms which 
hinder us. Nakedness means freedom, truth, soul-reality. We 
must be "naked" because we cannot enter the sacred fire with 
clothes on; they burn, and thus we will be scorched. Self can- 
not burn. Do you remember the story from classic mythology 
about Demeter, who is the Goddess Isis, who placed the little 
Demophaon, son of Metanaia, in the fire, that he might become 
immortal? The mother interfered and the boy was burned ! Re- 
member also Ishtar of Babylonian legend, who had to drop one 
garment after another on each of the seven steps in her descent 
into hell to recover her other half, Ishtubar. At last she stood 
naked and the doors opened. She returned unscathed. In 
clothes we burn, but not without them. 

The same truths come out in the Sufi legend about the soul, 
which came to the gate of Paradise and asked for admission. 
Upon inquiry from within: "Who is there?" the soul answered: 
"It is I," but the door was not opened, and, remained closed for 
three times thousand years, each time the soul returned with 
the same request. At last when the soul had learned what the 
Inner Life is and answered not " It is I, "but " It is We, ' ' then the 
door opened at once. When the soul has learned that separate- 
ness or clothes are in the way, then it enters into joy; never 
before. 

Did not the cry of Jesus on the cross: "Father, why hast 
Thou left me?" signify the same f They did ! The proof is, that 
immediately after that cry of nakedness, he exclaimed: "It is 
accomplished!" (his work.) 

What can we do in nakedness and not otherwise f In naked- 
ness, we are like Thor. Thor is the spiritual giant, who is not 
attached to "these" things and who therefore unlike anybody 
else, can break through Helas Kingdom and make even Hell 



MYSTICISM 39 

shiver, shake and tremble. Asa-Thor is the God of rejuvenes- 
cence ; his beard is as red as his fiery nature ; he has the Mjolner, 
the belt of strength and the marvelous mail, all symbols of puri- 
fied or " naked' ' humanity. Once he rode into Hellheim and 
brought consternation. Never before had living men entered 
where the ground was only fear, the walls nothing but pain and 
the roof made of the stench of death. No wonder Thor's com- 
panion Loki advised him to leave. But Thor would not till he 
had lectured the contemptible shades that stood in rows along 
the walls and shivered clad only in shadows and pained at sight 
of so much health ; health, they had lost because of fear and the 
Negative. Only nakedness accomplishes such deeds! No man 
loaded down with merchandise or in fine clothes comes back out 
of Hell, or is able to lecture the shades. He is rich, too rich ! I 
Now you see the meaning of nakedness and will understand why 
anchorites almost always are naked. It is a symbolical help. 

Enough of pictures ! After that which I have now said about 
Mysticism and the Inner Life, it will not be surprising, that I 
say that Mysticism or the Inner Life is a protest against the 
actual conditions of its surroundings. The Inner Life is not nec- 
essarily so radical as Mysticism, but rather inclined in the same 
direction. Mysticism is always in its beginning a protest against 
the traditional and against the actual. It is in conflict with the 
traditional because it demands originality. It is in conflict with 
the actual because the actual is usually brutal and of itself in 
conflict with the Inner Life, a conflict which roots in the usurp- 
tion of leadership by the actual. The Inner Life cannot and 
will not recognize the actual for more than a passing show, a 
necessary face of life. The actual is made by man, not by the 
Eternal, hence its ephemeral character. 

But Mysticism and the Inner Life people have not always 
been in the right. Let me show a couple of mistakes. Mystic- 
ism has in the past condemned the senses. One of the mystics 
has said: "The senses resemble an ass, and evil desire is the 
halter' ' — that is the general idea of the mystics, but the Inne* 
Life as I understand it does not necessarily take that attitude ; 
at any rate not always. 

Let me try to say something in favor of a rational view of 
the senses, the flesh. I may possibly meet with opposition in 
some of you; may I therefore ask you to listen and follow my 
explanation till the end and wait with your judgment until I am 
through with my exposition? Mind is the interpreter and the 



40 THE INNEE LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

fashioner of the music that the Divine plays upon us, and I may- 
say without fear of contradiction, that the senses are the me- 
chanics, who mould the divine fire into acts, into deeds. They 
are the hands of the mind. Can you realize what our world 
would be if we had no senses? Have you ever thought of it? 
If mind only existed and no senses, the Word might be spoken, 
sounds might thrill the vacant spaces and colors might dash from 
pole to pole or illumine the night, but there would be no human 
world. The human world is made by the human hand or which 
is the same, by human deeds and there can be no human deeds 
without the senses, the flesh ! That is a fact ! Without the arts 
man could not utter himself, much less discover himself. He 
would remain mute and blind. In his desire to speak and to see 
he evolved them; he demonstrated his desire by the arts. That 
is the origin of the arts. If there is anything at the bottom of 
you, you will develop a sense for its manifestation and an art 
that proves your value ! 

We have the choice: a human world and the senses, the 
flesh, or, Death as Death will be if we leave out the senses, the 
flesh. In that case, Death will then be the end of life and not as 
it really is, an event merely. The denial of the senses, the flesh, 
means that we declare that all our doings, all our acts, are weav- 
ings of smoke, are puppet plays, are perishable time-illusions 
and not the manifestations of that wonderful existence which 
Silence reveals. What Divinity is esoterically, we do not know, 
but to us Divinity becomes something by our acts. In our do- 
ings Divinity is unfolded in us. The Greater Life, the Inner 
Life, cannot admit limited views. In the Greater Life, the five 
senses (to limit the question to these) are the five fingers of the 
human hand, and, the human hand is the most marvelous organ 
(none other excepted) we have. Without a hand, no human 
society ! Think it out and you shall see ! Let us learn to honor 
the senses, the flesh, and, be done with absurd asceticism. The 
senses are nature's personification in man. "In the senses of 
the body, Nature mirrors herself to the mind" (Krause), and 
in "the formation of the human body, Nature authenticates her- 
self as one living whole." (Krause.) 

True, the senses drag us frequently over the ragged edges 
of sorrow! But it is rarely in the open sea that our ship is 
wrecked. Good sailors run out into the Open when the storm 
overtakes them, and they avoid the shore. The gale throws the 
catboat and the timid sailor on the rocks, or on the shoal that he 



MYSTICISM 41 

hugs in his fear of the Open. The dangers on the sea are chiefly 
those of shore and shoal, not in the Open. Keep the rudder 
true ! Eun out into the Open ! True, the senses are for many 
fall and destruction. With regard to the senses, the old accusa- 
tion which Adam raised against Eve holds good. Because fools 
have used and abused the senses they accuse the senses of undo- 
ing them. The accusation is as cowardly and unjust as that of 
Adam's. True, the senses often leave us empty and forlorn, 
but it is also true that it is first when the trees are leafless and 
reach the bare arms up in the cold air towards a bleak sky, that 
we discover the secret of the forest! Have you seen that? It 
is so ! There is a wonderful symbolism here ! When the forest 
is overloaded with leaves it is intoxicated with life and its mys- 
tery simmers away. When a human being is drenched in pas- 
sionate streams, the senses adjust the exuberance and the pain 
of the drain reveals their real nature. Never does conscience 
speak clearer than through the senses and their ravages ! The 
cure of life is more life! Do you see how the senses minister 
to the redemption of the whole man? I say all this fully con- 
scious of what I say. I glorify the senses, but I will not sub- 
scribe to Keat's famous exclamation: "Oh, for a life of sensa- 
tions rather than thoughts. ' ' The senses must always be ' i spir- 
itualized' ' and that not merely in Keat's sense. To " spiritual- 
ize' ' to him had only an aesthetic sense and no moral significa- 
tion. Degeneration is an economic factor in the life of the indi- 
vidual ; and, Deity and Nature are not at strife. 

I will say, that the Inner Life works with the senses, the 
flesh, as a gardener does with the soil. He uses the soil to grow 
his flowers in, and, has no other ground to plant in, and, this is 
the point, the soil he plants in is organic matter with slight 
intermixture of inorganic material. Just how the plant appro- 
priates and assimilates the elements we do not know. We see 
it grow, sometimes very well; but we also see the plants make 
mistakes and die. Apply this to ourselves. We grow in or- 
ganic matter, in flesh, which we renew daily, and, if we do not 
do so, we die. We cannot grow without it any more than a plant 
can. How we appropriate and assimilate the elements we do 
know to some small extent, but we certainly do not know how 
it is that we can flower spiritually and can blossom heavenly on 
account of this organic life. But we do flower and blossom and 
6ome blossoms are very sweet smelling. We know that we make 
numerous mistakes — probably more than the plants — in our en- 



42 THE INNEK LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

deavors to appropriate and assimilate food both for the organ- 
ism, the flesh, for brain and heart, for sonl and spirit. Eather 
than condemn the life of the senses, Inner Life people study 
them and one result Inner Life people have attained and that 
is, that they have realized that the senses are poor rulers but 
excellent servants when trained. It must not be charged 
against the senses, the flesh, that weeds and poisonous growth 
spring up and overrun everything. They are not generated by 
the soil or the senses, but are sowed there. The soil and the 
senses are simply passive tools to bring them forth, and no more. 
Yet, the senses have been condemned because of these growths ; 
nobody seems to have seen the irrationality and the absurdity 
of the charge. The whole absurdity must be laid at the door of 
the fanatics, and we must in the future acquire more sense. 
Let me advise my hearers when they next time hear some fanatic 
in unqualified talk condemn the senses, the flesh, that they ask 
him what he means. Ask him for instance if his harangues are 
not of the senses? Ask him where he gets his violence from? 
Ask him if his God gave him his senses in order to betray him! 
His answer to these questions will prove what sort of senses he 
has, and, whether he has any sense. If he does not see the point, 
you will. In our day we cannot afford to live in the foolishness 
of the past, nor to be led by maniacs ; let us have truth every- 
where. 

Like the gardener we must engage in the study of soils, and 
find out how to plow our sense-soil ; how to loosen it for the roots 
of the plants ; how to water it and drain it, and, keep it free from 
weeds; how to manure with the right ingredients, and, how to 
do it in right proportions ; how one soil of our sense-nature is 
suitable for art-cultures and another for wisdom-cultures. 
Common sense seems to me would advise this. But as it is, in 
the past when people awakened spiritually, they turned most un- 
naturally against themselves ; they cut away all balancing roots, 
became top-heavy and were thrown over by the storms. Eead 
any life of any of those people and you shall see it is as I have 
stated. Now, the New Mysticism has profited by study and will 
avoid these mistakes. This is what I at present will say about 
the senses, the flesh. You may now pass judgment upon what 
I have said and make up your mind what you will do with the 
subject. The future is yours if you will take it. This I will 
say, do not misunderstand or misconstrue my words, I have not 
advocated the free play of desires. I have not recommended 



MYSTICISM 43 

license. I have in no way given anybody an excuse for any 
crime, or liberty to break with common sense morality. I have 
asked for a more dignified attitude to yourself. I have sug- 
gested a revision of old ideas, ideas that have proved unburn an 
and unnatural. As I said, the Future belongs to you! The 
Future, even as we now can see it, is vastly different from the 
Past. To own the Future you must endeavor to find out the ten- 
dencies that sway the moment you now live in, and the tenden- 
cies, I say, are in the direction of a thorough revision of our 
ideas about the senses, the flesh. 

It is not only our ideas of the senses, that need recasting. 
Our attitude to Eeason is also false, and must be corrected. I 
think you can see that by a reform of our sense ideas and by 
deeper understanding of Reason, we shall rise to a higher level 
than the mystics of the past, and, we shall be much richer in our 
existence. Browning wrote, "man is not man as yet," but, I 
say, we may now become man. And how? In the first place by 
cultivating immediacy of the feelings. By feelings, the mystics 
and Inner Life people do not understand perceptions as they are 
defined in psychology. They mean divine gifts, graces, spir- 
itual intuitions, the Holy Ghost and the Image as I defined it in 
my last lecture. Secondly, "man may become a man" by learn- 
ing from the Mother ! Or to put it in a phrase more familiar to 
people in the West. We must learn "to live according to Na- 
ture." "To live according to nature" is a terribly hackneyed 
phrase, and its modern originator, J. J. Rousseau, was far re- 
moved from a life according to nature. Nevertheless, that 
phrase would express the highest philosophy were it but under- 
stood rightly and practiced correctly. 

In the West, the stoics were high and worthy examples of 
what a "life according to nature" ought to be. They were very 
near to the truth. If you have no better plans for your conduct, 
try to live up to Marcus Aurelius ' i i Thoughts ' ' and you can see 
for yourself. "To live according to nature" is sublime exist- 
ence, but to live a "natural life" is undesirable, and, it is that 
life which all Inner Life teachers oppose. At first appearance 
the difference may not be discovered, but it is there and the dif * 
ference is radical. I shall come back often to this subject in 
future chapters and fully explain the difference between the 
phrases. 

I think that I shall here and now meet Mathew Arnold's 
onslaught. In a poem entitled ' ' No Harmony with Nature, ' ' he 
wrote 



44 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

' c In harmony with Nature ? Eestless fool 
Who with such heat dost preach what were to thee, 
When true, the last impossibility — 

To be like Nature strong, like Nature cool!" 

I will meet this onslaught with the remarks made by 
Chwang-Tzu, a Chinese commentator on the Tao-Teh-King. 
Chwang-Tzu wisely said, "You cannot speak of the ocean to a 
well-frog, the creature of a narrower sphere ; you cannot speak 
of ice to a summer insect, a creature of the season. You cannot 
speak of Tao to a pedagogue; his scope is too restricted. ' ' I 
think Mathew Arnold, the schoolmaster, has been fully answered 
by that, and, moreover, a couple thousand years before he was 
born. The same Arnold went on in the same poem slandering 
Nature. Like Tennyson, who wrote so many false lines on Na- 
ture, he was influenced by some of the misconceptions that in- 
hered in the first presentation of the doctrine of Evolution. 
Both charged Nature with being "cruel" and exonerated Man, 
whom they claimed was "sick of blood." A stupid and ignor- 
ant boy may be kissed and petted by a fond mother and the rude 
world blamed for not taking kindly to her darling. Nature does 
not care for such a boy. So these men, small as they were made 
by class room and boudoir, found the sympathy and help they 
called for in clubs and conventional drawing rooms and claimed 
that Nature was heartless and cruel. None of them ever told us 
how they had followed the sun across the sky for a day, or seen 
the moon shine upon Diana in the bath in some secreted lake in 
the woods. Guess they had no such experience ! Nature would 
never sympathize with them ! How could she 1 They never had 
watched the opening and closing of a flower ; the blowing of the 
bud ; the movements of a star fish or the formation and re-for- 
mation of clouds. Such people do not perceive Nature's Inner 
Life, or man's eternal longings. Nature is Spirit visible and 
Spirit is Nature invisible. 

They both maintained that ' ' Nature and man can never be 
fast friends." Both of these two are like the prisoners in 
Plato 's cave, who sit chained to the rock and with their backs to 
the very small opening that leads into the cave and through which 
comes the only ray of light that ever comes to the eyes of these 
prisoners. Being unable to turn round, the little they see are 
faint shadows on the rocks in front of them. As a matter of 
course, in such people we can find no cosmic emotion, no yearn- 



MYSTICISM 45 

ing to feel the pulses of the great heart of the universe. They 
loiow neither visible spirit, nor invisible Nature. They are for- 
ever strangers to the Mother's voice and have never felt her 
Presence. I need not say any more; your own acquaintance 
with Mathew Arnold and Tennyson's poems has told you that 
they were not Nature lovers. I am sure you will not fear a 
study of a life "according to nature" because these two did not 
live according to nature, but in an atmosphere filled with phan- 
tasms of human greatness. 

I trust that my hearers will not misunderstand my words 
about a "life according to Nature" to mean a recommendation 
of that which in modern literature and philosophy goes by name 
of Naturalism. I mean nothing of the kind. Naturalism in this 
sense means perverted and degenerate human nature. By ' ' life 
according to Nature," when I use the phrase, I mean Nature- 
Mysticism, and of that you shall hear more in later talks. Nat- 
uralism I condemn in all its ways and forms. It is the cause of 
the moral decay of to-day. 

Quite often some say, to compliment another: "he is a 
strong nature," or "he is a strong man," but the phrase is a 
very doubtful one. Its value depends upon whence this man 
derives his strength. A strong man may be a "big stick" and 
as such have his way and will, a way and will that the community 
may need, because the community develops on selfish and nat- 
ural lines. But that very man is in all probability a weak man 
and a man of desires, and a mere baby in the Inner Life. Such 
a man may possibly be a tool in the hands of cosmic energy, 
but for all that not create any spiritual force for others or for 
himself. On the other hand, there are in the world the so-called 
"silent in the land;" those of whom you never hear till by acci- 
dent you come across them; those who so "empty" (Kenosis) 
themselves, that really they do not live, but somebody else lives 
upon them and in their stead; those whose only motto is "not 
as I will. ' ' These are the strong people, because their silences 
are eternal work; their "emptiness" prevents strife, and their 
non-assertions of will establishes Unity, and thereby they be- 
come patterns for all the world. 

The Inner Life loves silence and solitude; but it can also 
hear the divine voice in the roar of hell, and it can see the divine 
face in the market place as well as in mountain fastnesses or by 
the sea. The Inner Life does not love the passing show, but is 
not offended by vulgarity, nor does it condemn bearers of evil. 



46 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

It exists beyond such things. Babia was asked if she hated evil, 
to which she answered that inasmuch as she loved God always, 
she had no time to hate evil. 

Mystics ignorant of true methods and without guides have 
given fight to their desires in various ways, and unfortunately 
readers of these reported fights have only too often been led to 
repeat these fights, hence the overflow of ascetic advice in mystic 
books. Some mystics denying the desires dammed up for them, 
have found all dams swept away and themselves besides. Other 
mystics have weakened the desires by diverting their forces, as 
one does with mountain torrents in order to break their power. 
None of these understood that the human passions are human 
parallels to the subterranean fires, which from time to time 
break forth in earthquakes ; nor did they understand that pas- 
sions are the vortex-powers of devastating tornadoes; powers 
terrible to us, foreign to us, yet nevertheless engines of the di- 
vine workings. Other Mystics have led the waters of passion 
into irrigating canals and thus added great strength and fruit- 
fulness to their natural gifts. Such Mystics were not far from 
the truth. Other mystics have even given themselves over to 
desires, calling them heavenly fires and divine messengers. But 
fools they were, and, soon they ended by burning themselves in 
these fires. All this relates to one side of our nature, the side 
we are to fight, to " regulate,' ' to "kill out," the desire life. All 
Eastern treatises are especially emphatic on this subject. East- 
ern passions and desires are so much more violent than ours and 
they need much more radical means for suppression. 

Now about another side of our nature, equally in our way 
and needing " overcoming. ' ' I mean our intellectual proclivi- 
ties : and they are especially a Western sin. I do not wish to 
speak in paradoxes, but I am almost tempted to say that ignor- 
ance is the best soil for Mysticism. Mysticism is not literary 
religion, it is Wisdom-religion. "Learning is the perception of 
differences. Wisdom is the perception of similarities. ,, As it 
is, Mysticism can do without learning. "He has scarce thought 
to any purpose who has not thought beyond words ; who has not 
thought long enough, deep enough, fruitfully enough, to encoun- 
ter, somewhere, glimmerings of truth untranslatable into 
words." The Mystic, he of the Inner Life, has thought intense- 
ly, that is why he needs no words, no learning. He possesses 



MYSTICISM 47 

the Word. And he loves God and the neighbor, and he knows 
intuitively. Says the Tao-Teh-King : "Dispense with learning 
and save yourself anxiety.' ' Mystics and Inner Life people 
could not be caught in Descarte's delusion: Cogito, ergo sum: 
"I think, consequently I am." " Cogito' ' to the mystic means 
"coagito," that is to say, "I act and I think," because "action" 
or "thought" takes place in him. He is not the actor nor "the 
thinker. ' ' 

Mysticism stands sharply over against "desires" and 
against "intellect," when these usurp the place of wisdom. In- 
tellect is impotent to penetrate beyond the phenomenal world to 
a vision of a reality transcending sense. Intellect is merely a 
land surveyor, and is neither the land nor is it the owner of the 
land. The Ego is both the land and the owner of the land, and 
it uses intellect merely as timekeeper and as a fence around its 
"space" or land, just as the Ego uses its other faculties. The 
intellect is thus a tool, a comparative faculty, and no more. As 
a comparative faculty, it judges of relations, of forms, forms of 
mind and forms of the object. But of essence, the intellect 
knows nothing and can know nothing. Intellect is analytic and 
can only concern itself with one point at the time. It lacks to- 
tally comprehensiveness, the ALL embracing power. It is 
"conceptual thinking" only, or, which is the same, "we think by 
means of something else ' ' and not absolutely. Mysticism wants 
the absolute. And this is the definition of intellect by Mysticism 
of all ages and lands. Mysticism wants Essence, Being, and 
not Form merely, hence it has always stood apart from intellect 
and the limited knowledge it can give, and, relegated it to 
lower places. By intellectual search we cannot find out the Di- 
vine; we may nevertheless have communion or fellowship with 
it, namely, in heart and feeling. 

The mystics of all ages, first clear the ground, then they 
plow and then they sow. Mysticism has always been (1) first 
a protest, then (2) a positive content. After it has denied the 
power of intellect to teach us about Essence, or Being, and de- 
clared that intellect cannot reveal Essence or Being, it tells us 
that we, in virtue of our Ego, possess a power that is equal to 
reach up to the Divine and the Universal, and, which is equal to 
bring us into union with it. This faculty, which answers to 
Kant's (so-called) "practical reason" has many names. In the 
West, the mystics of Germany call it "the spark of the soul," 
"the ground of the soul," and very characteristically they call 



48 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

it also "synthesis ;" and rightly they call the intellect " analy- 
sis.' ' The mystics are sympathetic people; they gather to- 
gether ; they do not shatter. 

The illusory phenomenon is always in the way. How shall 
the soul pass from the phenomenon to the noumenon? Human 
understanding, Echardt reiterates, is useless in this matter. It 
can perceive things in time and space only. The soul must 
therefore try to attain what ordinarily will be called absolute 
ignorance and darkness, but which mystics call ' ' the nothing of 
nothing ' ' and of which the soul cannot and must not try to form 
any conception. It is not by an intellectual development, but 
by sheer passivity, by waiting for the transcendal action of God 
that the soul can attain the highest knowledge. That ignorance 
here recommended is not that blindness of mind, that untaught, 
that un-informed condition which that word ordinarily repre- 
sents; it is a condition in which the soul separates itself from 
the phenomenal world ; voluntarily renounces all sensuous activ- 
ity and even ceases to think under the old forms. When the 
soul attains the nescience, then the soul is re-born; is in the 
Supreme. Though poor in spirit and having nothing, willing 
nothing, knowing nothing, the soul is in the highest and ap- 
proaching union with God. Examined more closely it will be 
seen that here is no illogical contradictions, nor foolish ascetic- 
ism. As John of the Cross said: "Spiritual things transcend 
sense, because they already include it," hence this passivity or 
negativity is formal only, and not real. The mystic has simply 
chosen the better part. From now on the soul lives in another 
world. In the East, where this is so well understood, they say 
that now the soul is in Sat- Chit- Ananda, in Being-Knowledge- 
Bliss. Meister Eckardt says that now God takes the place of 
the active reason. The soul has returned to the state in which 
it was before entering the phenomenal world ; but it has not re- 
turned empty handed, nay it has returned plus a recognition of 
itself as idea in God. Henceforth, to use a term from Spinoza, 
it sees everything sub specie eternitatis. Separated from man, 
from the external things, from chance, distractions and troubles 
it sees only Beality. 

I have nothing to say against mystics or against Inner Life 
people who reduce intellect to its place and refuse it permission 
to deal with spiritual things. But I have much against any so- 
called religious or other person who denies Eeason. The true 
mystic and the Inner Life people build their temples with stones 



MYSTICISM 49 

and timber furnished by Eeason or Tao, and, out of nothing else, 
and they know that temples are adaptations and symbols. Do 
you know what the word temple means? Well, originally a 
temple was not a house of prayer for the multitude, nor, a shrine 
or sanctuary of a god. The "templum" was a certain place 
"cut off" ( r4pv<a ), as the term means, and set apart by 
augurs, and, it included also that part of the heavens which was 
visible above this "cut off " place when one stood in the middle of 
it ; of course, it was not a building with a roof, and when it was a 
building it had no roof. The "templum" was then really a 
space set apart and nothing else. Intellectually there is nothing 
tangible in such a space, but to Reason, or the highest sense, 
there is in it a consecrated form of intercommunion between 
heaven and the soul. Anywhere, and wherever the human heart 
stands in the Inner Life, it builds such a ' ' templum. ' ' 

Do not compare this mystery to astrology of the kind of " a 
penny in the slot, " or " around the corner. ' ' It has nothing to 
do with astrology. The space is not a locality in the sense that 
its earth-place is any more sacred than any other place on earth. 
Its space is merely pointed out by means of a place and is in no 
wise tangible. If we had an augur here and asked him to show 
us the space of his temple he would point to a part or section 
of the sky and tell us where he saw a certain section of the sky, 
there would be his temple. If he should take you to the top of 
a mountain or to the bottom of a valley and say : here is my tem- 
ple ! you would still remain ignorant of what he meant, even if 
you saw a magnificent building and numerous priests. If you 
have the Inner Life of a mystic or theosoph you would know 
the mystery, however. The augurs of old from such a house 
without roof read the signs of the heavens ; the Inner Life peo- 
ple now hear The Word in their temple, not built of stones, but 
of Reason. They see the law for themselves and see it written 
in the Kosmos without any augur or other middleman. 

You will now understand why the true mystic reveres Rea- 
son. It is because Reason builds his temple; not a common 
meeting place, but his individual space (not place). Reason is 
Tao, the main subject of the Tao-Teh-King on which I shall talk 
to you. And you shall hear much about Tao, which means both 
Life — Truth — Way — Reason. Reason or Tao is not an abstrac- 
tion, but the constructive and combining power, which out of it- 
self builds up the form or body in which the I^age manifests 
itself. What the Image is, I defined in my last talk. Reason is 



50 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

Form, or Consciousness. Whatever we may call it, without 
Eeason there would be no manifestation of our real life. 

We say that we see this object or that, but we do not. Our 
eyes do not see it, but through our eyes we see forms, and Form 
manifested. 

When Moses saw the burning bush, or Jesus the descending 
dove, or the disciples saw the three figures at the time of the 
transfiguration, or when Arjuna saw the divine forms in nature, 
they all saw through their eyes not with them. To explain what 
I mean by looking through the eyes, I will borrow a little from 
Fiona Macleod (William Sharp). The illustration will be much 
more effective than words of mine. The publication was called 
"The Divine Adventure" and was first published in the Fort- 
nightly Review and later in book form. The story is about 
"Three in One," that is, Body, Will and Soul traveling together 
in a night full of beauty and suddenly coming upon a secret 
garden of ilex and tall cypresses, which rose like dark flowers 
out of the ground. Flickering moonlight lit up between the 
trees ; the wild foxes barked in the distance and owls hooted near 
by. i i Look, ' ' said the Body, and there on the mossy slope under 
seven great cypresses lay a man asleep on the ground. In the 
moonshine his face looked beautiful, and, as if great sorrows 
had ached the heart. After a little it appeared that the sleeper 
was not alone, but that there were eleven others, lying about, 
also asleep. Only one of them was sitting upright as if he were 
the watchman of the hour, though slumbering at his post. Still 
another, the twelfth one, sat behind the great bole of a tree. 
Suddenly the spell was broken; the vision vanished far off 
among the hills, foxes barked, and, the owls hooted nearby. All 
else was still. This was what the whole man, the "three in 
one, ' ' saw — through the eyes in part, and, in part with the eyes. 

Individually, the Body, evidently with the eyes, had seen in 
the sleepers worn and poor men, ill-clad and weary, and, instead 
of the one sitting behind the tree, a company of evil men with 
savage faces and drawn swords. 

Individually, the Will, evidently also with the eyes, had seen 
only a fire drowning in its own ashes, and round about a mass of 
leaves blown hither and thither by the wind. 

Individually, the Soul, evidently through the eyes, had seen 
Divine Love asleep ; not sleeping as mortals sleep, but resting in 
a holy, quiet, brooding peace and in communion with Eternal 
Joy. Around Love were the Eleven Powers and Dominions of 



MYSTICISM 51 

the World. And the one that had caused surprise by his ap- 
pearance was the Lord of Shadows, whom some call Death, 
others the Unknown God. Behind were demons and demoniacs. 
The forest itself was made of human souls awaiting God. 

Perhaps the story may awaken in you a recollection of sim- 
ilar experiences; if not so romantic, perhaps alike anyhow. I 
am happy to say that I have had experiences of the kind as just 
described. I remember William Blake to have said, according 
to his biographers, that he, of course, saw the Sun set like a big 
flaming ball, not unlike a guinea. "But," said he, according to 
report, "through my eyes, I also see hosts of angels pass up and 
down singing: ' Glory! Glory! God on High!' " 

Friends! I think it is well, not to be hasty and condemn 
others who describe a scenery which we may not have seen. One 
of the party may have seen with the eyes, the other through the 
eyes. Some see the moon, others the moonlight; which is most 
bewitching? Who sees best? 

Now to return to my argument. I want to point out how 
many people come to call Idealism Mysticism, and to believe that 
Idealism constitutes the Inner Life. A sad mistake. It is quite 
true that we speak correctly at times when we say that Form or 
Consciousness is all there is. That is, for instance, the refrain 
of all the Upanishads, and thus summed up it is one of the main 
teachings of Vedanta. It is true, I say, that it is all there is, 
but only to us. Only to us ! Whether it is all there is to other 
beings, we do not know ; in all probability it is not. That Form 
or Consciousness must be ours; it could not be that of other 
beings. Nor can it be said absolutely that Form or Conscious- 
ness is all there is, for manifestly Form or Consciousness de- 
pends upon Substance. Substance, to be sure, is unknown to us, 
but that does not change the case; whatever there is, there is 
and must be Something back of Form or Consciousness. 

All this has a direct bearing upon what we call knowledge. 
All we know is, as was said, Form or Consciousness and not Sub- 
stance. In the West we identify our knowledge of Form with 
Reality, and that is false. Most of us in the West are therefore 
idealists and not mystics. True mystics, alone of all, discover 
the fallacy and reject the claims for Consciousness. They want 
to go behind it. Idealism is by no means enough for them. 

Mystics, as well as a great many other people, even profes- 
sional philosophers, must learn to distinguish between knowl- 
edge and reality. The besetting sin in the West is to confound 



52 THE INNEB LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

knowledge with reality. The West has a doctrine, commonly 
held among philosophers, that says that "knowledge is a copy of 
the real world outside us." In it lies the same error as that the 
wayfarer so readily falls into, that is, mistaking a fallen branch 
in the road for a snake. Knowledge is a copy of the outside 
world for us, but not a real copy, and the difference is enormous. 
The mistake is a fallacy which lies at the root of all Western 
philosophy and it is as pernicious as the phantasms that the de- 
sires originate, and, as destructive as those phantasms. Knowl- 
edge is of our making. The Eeality behind the appearance is 
and remains unknown. 

When the mystic degree of our mind opens, we discover the 
fallacy and we care no more for scholastic knowledge or mere 
Idealism. In the mystic degree the real knowledge appears. 
That knowledge is no more our knowledge, it is both our knowl- 
edge and the universal knowledge. We call it no more knowl- 
edge, it is Wisdom. And Wisdom is first of all, "flight from all 
positive content as from a limitation," next it is pure thought, 
pure thought from the Inner Life sources. It is not so much a 
medium necessary in this life, it is rather the sum total of that 
larger life, which some know now, but which all will reach some- 
time, when they become free. But while the humdrum of daily 
life calls for no wisdom, we should nevertheless dissolve this 
humdrum into its spiritual elements and let these elements per- 
meate our daily existence. It is marvelous how easy life be- 
comes that way. It is wonderful how we renew ourselves. In- 
deed, it is true, as Hermas Pastor a thousand and more years 
ago said, "that those who regenerate, grow young." The New 
Mysticism is alive to this and lives that way. Vedanta is 
merely Idealism and a sublime form of mind, and not enough 
for the future man, the man of the New Age, the man that lives 
the Inner Life. Vedanta and Idealism are one of the ap- 
proaches to the bridge, I spoke of in the first chapter or the 
voice that we in the West call Platonism, spoken of in the second 
chapter. 

Mystics and theosophists of highest order go behind con- 
sciousness, or to use the phrase used before, they see through 
their eyes. And what do they see? They see the World of 
Eeason, the Archetypes, or, if I may call it so, they see the heav- 
enly machinery and they experience great happiness. From my 
own experience with Beauty and art objects, I can say that by a 
little practice you can look so long upon the symbol before you 



MYSTICISM 53 

that the symbol becomes life and reality. At such moments and 
for sometime after, yon transcend yonr actual self and know 
positively that you are beyond yourself. All of this will be of 
importance in the study of the Tao-Teh-King which is a mystical 
book, and it will enable you to find the Inner Life by a study of 
that book. 

Thus far, I have dealt with laws of nature. Now I will give 
you a few historic facts to show what the mystics, the Inner Life 
people, are good for. 

Wherever we find Mysticism, we find it in either of two 
forms : two forms which answer to the two voices and the two ap- 
proaches to the bridge spoken of in my former chapter. 

(1) The one form is active and represented by such mystics 
as, for instance, those of the Ehine Valley. It is history, that 
these mystics, during the Black Death (1348-1349) and during 
the Interdict which lasted more than twenty years, utterly ig- 
nored the pope's orders. An interdict means that all bells are 
silenced, that penance and the eucharist is administered only to 
the dying ; that none but priests, friars and children under two 
years can get Christian burial and that none can be married. 
The loss of these religious forms means terrible suffering in 
Catholic countries. But the mystics buried the dead, married 
the living and said mass regularly. During the Black Death, 
which ravaged the Rhine Valley and adjoining parts of France 
most terribly, the regular clergy could not even for money be 
induced to bury people, nor to visit the sick or dying, nor to say 
mass for them. In many places they deserted their parishes. 
But mystics of the orders of the Dominicans and Franciscans 
officiated in all cases, and there is no record that any of them 
died of the Pest. This is active Mysticism. Not a bad kind, is 
it? The other form of Mysticism is quietistic. 

(2) In this group I place people who live in their deepest 
nature ; 

" beyond the things of sense, 

Beyond occasions and events, 

And who, through God's exceeding grace 

Know release from form, and time and place ;" 

(Whittier) 

I shall describe these people by a story or two attributed to 
the famous John Tauler and you will please note that this beg- 
gar I describe is not held up before you as an example because 



54 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

he is a beggar, but because he is a free man ; a man who lives in 
the Ground of the soul, as the mystics call it. In silence he has 
discovered the Divine Self in himself and is able to teach the 
learned, but as yet un-free Dr. Tauler. With this in mind the 
following queer story will not sound unreasonable and you will 
understand the quietistic mystic. This is the story. 

There was once a learned man who longed and prayed full 
eight years that God would show him some one to teach him the 
way of truth. And on a time, when he was in great longing, 
there came unto him a voice from heaven, and said : i ' Go to the 
front of the Church, there thou wilt find a man that shall show 
thee the way to blessedness.' ' So thither he went, and found 
there a poor man, whose feet were torn, and covered with dust 
and dirt, and all his clothing scarce worth three cents. He 
greeted him saying: "God give thee good morrow.' ' To this 
the poor man answered: "I never had ill morrow !" Again he 
said : ' l God prosper thee, ' ' to which the other answered : i ' Never 
had I ought but prosperity' ' — "Heaven save thee," said the 
scholar, "How answerest thou me so?" only to receive the re- 
ply: "I was never other than saved." 

The scholar was perplexed and said: "Explain this to me, 
for I do not understand. ' ' 

"Willingly," quoth the poor man, "Thou wishest me good 
morrow. I never had an ill morrow; for am I an hungered, I 
praise God; am I freezing, doth it hail, snow, rain, is it fair 
weather or foul, I praise God ; and therefore had I never ill mor- 
row. 

' i Thou didst say, God prosper thee. I have never been un- 
prosperous, for I know how to live with God ; I know that what 
He doeth is the best, and what God giveth or ordaineth for me, 
be it pain or pleasure, that I take cheerfully from Him as the 
best of all, and, so I have never adversity. 

"Thou wishest God to bless me. I was never unblessed, for 
I desire to be only in the will of God, and I have so given up my 
will to the will of God, that what God willeth I will." 

"But if God were to cast thee into hell," said the scholar, 
"what wouldst thou do then?" 

"Cast me into hell? His goodness holds Him back there- 
from. Yet if He did, I should have two arms to embrace Him 
withal, and even so, I would sooner be in hell and have God, 
than in heaven and not have Him. ' ' 

Then understood the scholar that true abandonment with 
utter abasement was the nearest way to God. 



MYSTICISM 55 

Again the scholar asked the poor man: "From whence 
comest thou ? " " From God. " " Where has thou found God ! ' ' 
"Where I abandoned all creatures! I am a King. My king- 
dom is my soul. This kingdom is greater than any kingdom on 
the earth. ' ' 

"What hath brought thee to this perfection V 9 "My si- 
lence, my heavenward thoughts and my union with God. ' ' 

This is life; this is simplicity. Not only did this beggar 
have life, he was life. And the report is that Dr. Tauler was so 
struck with this man and this meeting, that he gave up his 
preaching and withdrew for seven years to the Oberland. When 
he returned he became the famous mystic, now so well known in 
history. What had happened to the beggar which made him so 
great in life and so profound in knowledge, though he externally 
was nothing? What did he rest on? He had learned that "it 
is the ground we do not tread upon which supports us. ' ' This 
ground is Tao, of which more later. If you analyze this story, 
what will it prove or demonstrate? If we read it "syntheti- 
cally ? ' 9 The * ' poor beggar * 9 is certainly not ' i poor in spirit, ' ' 
nor is his mind covered with "dust and dirt;" and though his 
clothing may not be worth "three cents," his spiritual superior- 
ity is beyond price. He meets the "learned man's" greetings 
with a parry every time as if they were sword cuts, and he re- 
futes what he considers insinuations and radical misunderstand- 
ings of life 's true order and the rationality of existence. When 
finally asked: "From whence comest Thou?" he gives an an- 
swer that comprehends all further and now unnecessary details. 
"From God." By that answer he has given an unequivocal re- 
ply, such as all mystics would give upon such similar questions. 
But to the analytic intellect, he has given no answer. Moreover, 
he further defines himself as a mystic of the heart by the answer 
he gives to the question: "Where hast thou found God?" His 
answer was, "Where I abandoned all creatures," and that "the 
learned man" should be in no further doubt, the mystic contin- 
ued triumphantly : "I am a king. My kingdom is my soul. This 
kingdom is greater than any kingdom on the earth. ' ' All this 
is of no value for analysis ; the words are not intellectual state- 
ments. You can analyze the conceptions "kingdom" and 
"soul," but you cannot "analyze" this synthetic phrase: "My 
kingdom is my soul. ' ' 

This is a specimen of a mystic of the heart, a theopathetic 
mystic, that is, one who suffers all things. Suffers ! — not neces- 



56 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

sarily in pain ! Nay, one who is passive ! One who has under- 
stood the mystery of obedience to the course of life, no matter 
what it may be phenomenally. One, whose mind is not bound 
in Spanish boots of logic, but who has experienced the freedom 
from illusions which come from living untrammeled by philo- 
sophical systems. One, who knows of no "eternal no!" who 
does not fret at hindrances, who does not try to force locked 
doors, one who blesses drudgery, one who fears no cross ! Lest 
this word "theopathetic" trouble you, let me recall to your mem- 
ory that the Greek word vdsv (Pate) means a passive state, 
hence secondarily suffering, misfortune; that you know from 
your Greek dictionary, and it is well, but you do not know that 
mystics consider suffering to be a blessing and that suffering is 
a normal condition to them. Mystics invite suffering as the 
best monitor against becoming entangled in illusions and sensual 
or phenomenal states. Nobody better than the mystic has un- 
derstood the educational value of suffering. This mystic is, as I 
said, of the class of theopathetic mystics, common in the south of 
Europe, France, Spain, Italy. He is of the company of Mme. 
Guyon, Molinos, John of the Cross, Theresa, Catherine of Siena. 
All of these sang like Mme. Guyon : 

"Love is my teacher 

'Tis Love alone can tell of Love. ' ' 

'Tis not the skill of human art 
Which gives me power my God to know ; 
The sacred lessons of the heart 
Come not from instruments below.' ' 

You notice that this "poor beggar' ' upon the question: 
"Where hast thou found God?" did not quote any philosophical 
system or enter upon any discussion on the "Path to Reality." 
He is not troubled with epistemological problems. His answer 
lies on no intellectual plan ; he is on the plan of immediacy, the 
plan of simplicity, and because he has abandoned all intellectual 
and sensual problems, he stands in the principle of the Whole 
and answers from out that standpoint. And that he knows his 
own standpoint and is in full self-conscious possession of him- 
self, is clear from his final answer to the question, "What has 
brought you to this perfection?" His answer was, "My silence. 
My heavenward thought and my Union with God." These 



MEISTER ECKHAEDT 57 

words could not and have not been transcended by any philoso- 
pher or any philosophical system. This mystic knows from out 
his own soul at once and without intellectual training that which 
the few philosophers who have attained similar knowledge have 
only attained through long years of painful thinking. The 
heart has reasoning powers of its own as much as the brain and 
the mind have. 

Bef ore, in a former chapter, when I spoke of the two voices, 
I at-oned them in the voice of the ' ' Inner Man ! Tao. ' ' When I 
spoke of the two approaches to the bridge, I declared the truth 
to be in the middle. Here are two forms of Mysticism. How 
are they both the Inner Life? How are they at-oned? Place 
Nature in the witness box and you shall hear her declare that 
she is double. Sometimes the beast, sometimes the beauty. 
Sometimes Life, sometimes Death, and in no case revealing her- 
self fully. She speaks to us incessantly, yet she never betrays 
her mystery. She is our mother and that explains it. Place 
Mind in the witness box and inquire about the character of our 
language, and ideas, our conceptions of beauty, or religious sym- 
bols, and Mind declares that an inevitable dualism bisects nature 
and mind, and, that unity is only attained by a leap out of mind 
into the transcendental, into Wisdom. Mind will declare that 
our whole world is a system of nuptials and that only by remov- 
ing the extremes of active and passive Mysticism do they be- 
come one in true Mysticism or Inner Life, Tao, which is the sum 
total of both. Both of these two forms of Mysticism are found 
in the Tao-Teh-King and you shall hear more about them by and 
by. 

Now, I will appeal for a life on the inner basis of our exist- 
ence. Let our motive be love such as sung by Mme. Guyon, 
Love is my teacher; love alone can tell of love. Let us aban- 
don individual self-assertion and live according to Meister 
Eckardt, who said 

(Here is my translation from his Ms. (Fol. 274, 297, 301.) 

" There is something in the soul, which is above its created 
nature. It is in itself one and simple; it is above name and 
knowledge; it is pure No-thing. If you could do away with 
yourself, you would have all this is in itself. But so long as 
you look upon yourself as Something, so long you know as little 
what this is as my mouth knows what color is, or, as my eyes 
know what taste is. About this, I have often spoken. Some- 
times I have called it a Power, sometimes a Light, sometimes a 



58 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

Divine Spark. It is free from any and all names and forms, as 
Deity is free. It is above all knowledge, above love and above 
grace. In this power (light, spark), blossoms and nourishes the 
Divine. This Light (power or spark), rejects all creatures and 
will have Deity only, Deity simply, and no revelation of Deity. 
This light (power or spark) is satisfied only by the Simple 
Ground, the Still Waste, where nothing moves and where nobody 
lives. It will have only the Silent Solitude in which no distinc- 
tions are discernible. This Ground, though immovable and un- 
recognizable is nevertheless that which moves all and by which 
all is recognized." 

You will have noticed that Eckardt here attempts to state 
"the thing itself," the eternal reality, the Noumenon and that 
he all through opposes it to something else, the phenomenon. 
If anything can or needs be added to this quotation from Eck- 
ardt, let me say that this infallible light is i l the light that never 
was on sea or land," which the poet speaks of. It "lighteth 
every man that cometh into the world." It is the highest heri- 
tage of our nature, the ultimate faculty. It requires no con- 
firmation and admits of no denial. It is direct and immediate 
in its operation. Our psychologists have no special name for it 
as yet. They know it in part as intuition, as ecstasy, as the 
over-soul, but such terms are defective because they smack too 
much of cognition only. The mystics attribute to this faculty, 
just described by Eckardt, both sensation, feeling and will 
and degrees of inner perception not known at all to ordinary 
psychology. Psychology has not sounded the depths of the soul 
as mystics have. Psychologists have never succeeded in dealing 
satisfactorily with Feeling as the fountain of consciousness. 
The fact is our school psychologies deal in abstractions ; but the 
mystics who know existence as a system of living forces, care not 
for abstraction or terms ; they live in realities. 



I 



SIMPLICITY 

IV, 

SHALL now begin to talk directly out of the book Tao-Teh- 
King, the book I have referred to several times in my three 
introductory chapters on the Inner Life. I have chosen for 
a text a line from Athanase: 

Our human souls 
Cling to the grass and the water brooks. 

I am fully aware that this line has no meaning to city peo- 
ple, or to people who are absorbed in city problems. Nor has 
it any poetry in it for those who have no sense of the Infinite in 
Nature. Nevertheless, I say that I could not find a more suitable 
text or motto for to-day's discourse on ' ' Simplicity, ' ' because 
my discourse will have no interest for city people, for people 
who prefer the stage to a midsummer-night's revel in the woods, 
and, who would rather breathe factory smoke than morning dew 
and the cool breezes of sunrise. Grass is, as I trust you shall 
see, a type of a simple and sincere life, a life for use, and, water 
you shall hear Laotzse speak of as a most marvelous element. 
No wonder then that human souls cling to them. 

Simplicity, human souls, grass and water brooks are no ab- 
stractions. They are real things and not metaphysical entities, 
nor all poetry. And we need to concern ourselves with the prac- 
tical, with life and its methods. I shall connect grass and water 
brooks with Simplicity and the three shall give us an insight 
into the human soul. 

To be sure 

"There's not a place on earth's vast round, 

In ocean deep, or air, 

Where skill and wisdom are not found," 



60 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

or as I said in the last chapter, " There is no place where God's 
feeling and imagination may not be seen" ; but to-day I will extol 
grass and water and their union with human souls. 

I must clear away some difficulties that may arise from mis- 
conceptions. While I shall recommend Simplicity, as the Tao- 
Teh-King defines it, I shall by no means advocate "simple" 
minds, or minds of "one idea." "Simple" people or simple- 
tons are as a matter of course beyond the pale of our discussion, 
and, "one idea" people are to say the least a nuisance and 
usually fanatics. Simplicity as defined in the Tao-Teh-King 
means balance in the midst of fullness, and is the very founda- 
tion both of culture and Inner Life. This brings out the second 
point, I want to set straight, and emphasize. It is this: Sim- 
plicity is a method of Nature's, that lies at the root of all her 
doings. If I personified Nature, I would say that Simplicity 
was her one attribute. Again, I shall not advocate ' ' The Simple 
Life" as it was preached in this country a few years ago. That 
movement came to naught because it did not rest on fundamen- 
tals : It was not Simplicity. It was a counterfeit and no more. 
It was merely a "knocking off." To knock off on your demands 
upon life does not produce Simplicity. Retrenchment is not 
Inner Life. ' ' The Simple Life ' ' and Simplicity are two different 
affairs. ' ' The Simple Life ' ' is only a compromise and can never 
produce Simplicity, and Simplicity does not necessarily mean a 
' ' Simple Life. ' ' Simplicity may be found in the midst of great 
abundance. 

Let me start by asserting, that as far as Nature is con- 
cerned, we all start evenly and with the same favors, and say 
that all the differences among men are created by themselves. 
In the words of Wordsworth, I will present Nature's case. 
Listen to what he said in the "Excursion" (9th book). 

"Alas ! what differs more than man from man! 

And whence that difference? 

Whence but from himself? 

For see the universal Race endowed 

With the same upright form ! — The sun is fixed, 

And the infinite magnificence of heaven 

Fixed, within reach of every human eye ; 

The sleepless ocean murmurs for all ears ; 

The vernal field infuses fresh delight 

Into all hearts. Throughout the world of sense, 



SIMPLICITY 61 

Even as an object is sublime or fair, 

That object is laid open to the view 

Without reserve or veil ; and, as a power 

Is salutary, or an influence sweet, 

Are each and all enabled to perceive 

That power, that influence, by impartial law. 

Gifts nobler are vouchsafed alike to all; 

Reason, and, with that reason, smiles and tears ; 

Imagination, freedom in the will ; 

Conscience to guide and check ; and death to be 

Foretasted, immortality conceived 

By all, — a blissful immortality, 

To them whose holiness on earth shall make 

The spirit, capable of heaven, assured. 

Strange, then, nor less than monstrous, might be deemed 

The failure, if the Almighty, to this point 

Liberal and distinguishing, should hide 

The excellence of moral qualities 

From common understanding; leaving truth 

And virtue difficult, abstruse and dark; 

Hard to be won, and only by a few; 

Strange, should He deal herein with nice respects, 
And frustrate all the rest ! Believe it not : 

The primal duties shine aloft, like stars ; 

The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless, 

Are scattered at the feet of Man, like flowers ; 

The generous inclination, the just rule, 

Kind wishes, and good actions, and pure thoughts, 

No mystery is here ! Here is no boon 

For high, yet not for low ; for proudly graced, 

Yet not for meek of heart. The smoke ascends 

To Heaven as lightly from the cottage hearth 

As from the haughtiest palace. He, whose soul 

Ponders this true equality, may walk 

The fields of earth with gratitude and hope — 

Yet, in that meditation, will he find 

Motive to sadder grief, as we have found ; 

Lamenting ancient virtues overthrown, 

And for the injustice grieving, that hath made 

So wide a difference between man and man. 



62 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

. . . How blest that pair 

Of blooming boys, whom we beheld even now, 

Blest in their several and their common lot! 

A few short hours of each returning day 

The thriving prisoners of their village school ; 

And thence let loose to seek their pleasant homes, 

Or range the grassy lawn in vacancy: 

To breathe and to be happy, run and shout ; 

For every genial power of earth and heaven, 

Through all the seasons of the changeful year 

Obsequiously doth take upon herself 

To labor for them; bringing each in turn 

The tribute of enjoyment, knowledge, health, 

Beauty, or strength! Such privilege is theirs, 

Granted alike in the outset of their course 

To both — Whatever fate the noon of life 

Eeserves for either, sure it is that both 

Have been permitted to enjoy the dawn — 

Both have been fairly dealt with ; looking back, 

They will allow that justice has in them 

Been shown, alike to body and to mind." 

Is there not over all this a grand Simplicity? Does not 
Nature offer us all the same terms? And this quotation is a 
lesson in Simplicity. Nature's method is so simple, that most 
people never notice it. And this want of notice is the beginning 
of all the future differences between man and man. In this pro- 
cedure of Nature, there is a lesson in the Inner Life. 

I will now let Laotzse explain how the differences grow up 
after the beginning has been made by ignoring Nature's sub- 
lime Simplicity. He and Confusius met once and the follow- 
ing is part of a conversation that took place between them. Con- 
fusius is blamed for all the fuss he makes about laws, rules and 
regulations. It is reported by one of Laotzse 's disciples that 
he spoke as follows to Confusius on the subject of Simplicity: 
"The chaff from winnowing will blind a man. Mosquitoes will 
bite a man and keep him awake all night and so it is with all 
this talk of yours about charity and duty to one's neighbor, it 
drives me crazy. My lord, strive to keep the world in its orig- 
inal Simplicity — why so much fuss? The wind blows as it listeth, 
so let virtue establish itself. The swan is white without a daily 
bath and the raven is black without dying itself. When the 



SIMPLICITY 63 

pond is dry and the fishes gasping for breath it is of no use to 
moisten them with a little water or a little sprinkling. Com- 
pared to their original and simple condition in the pond and the 
rivers it is as nothing." 

The lesson was severe and throws a strong light npon both 
teachers' methods. Laotzse would let Nature alone and let 
everybody remain in original Simplicity, firmly believing that 
truth would prevail; and, in as much as he spoke at the time 
when morals were decaying, he meant to tell Confusius that 
talking about duty and preaching would no more reform the 
people than a sprinkling would suffice for the fishes which had 
been taken out of their original element. The only way to re- 
form, he meant to say, was to restore primitive Simplicity. Ig- 
noring Simplicity produces all those fatal complications which 
now lie like a curse upon us. Confusius' insistance upon laws, 
ordinances and rescripts had that fatal effect upon China, and, 
Confusianism no doubt is the cause of China's misery. 

What will Simplicity do for us ! A great deal, surely. Hear 
what chapter XXII proclaims: "He that humbles himself shall 
be preserved entire. He that bends himself shall be straight- 
ened. He that empties himself shall be filled. He that has worn 
himself out shall be renewed. He that puts himself low down 
shall be exalted. For these reasons the Sage clings to Simplic- 
ity and is a pattern for the whole world." And as if to repeat 
what Simplicity can do, the chapter continues with a descrip- 
tion of the Sage: "He is not self displaying, therefore he shines. 
He is not self-approving, therefore he is praised. He is not 
vain, therefore he has merit. He is not self -exalting, therefore 
he is honored. And in as much as he is not striving, he is not in 
conflict with others, and no man is his enemy." And the chapter 
ends in a very remarkable way. It reads, "The ancient maxim: 
He that humbles himself shall be preserved entire; Oh, it is 
no vain utterance! Verily he shall be returned home in peace." 
This closing sentence reads almost as if it meant : ' i Surely he 
shall be saved! He shall go to heaven!" as we would say in 
Western phraseology. Personally, it seems to me, that I have 
nothing to explain or add to these sublime teachings. Anybody 
may translate them into his own religious terms and will find 
them fully answering to all he believes and wishes for, if he 
wishes for the real root of virtue. Alas! how many do? Some- 
body, speaking in Western thought, will ask: "What about 
sin?" Laotzse 's remedy against sin is "to feed the root instead 



64 THE INNEE LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

of lopping off the branches, ' ' and, surely nobody can suggest a 
more rational remedy. Killing the sinful is only adding sin to 
sin. By restoring the errant they may and can change their 
ways. By ' i feeding the root, ' ' or restoring Simplicity, the world 
may be saved from desires and false notions and — from sin ! 

Eestoring Simplicity means correcting our perceptions of 
values — but who cares to correct their perceptions of values'? 
Everywhere they answer us that we need not preach. They 
have freedom and that gives true value to life and the use of 
life. Is this really true? I think not! The world has a great 
deal of liberty, but that is not freedom. Liberty has let loose 
numerous desires and men are being swamped by them and live 
not in freedom, but in a terrible social quagmire, in bondage to 
their own lower nature. Many know this, but dare not admit it. 
Something called " social conscience" once in a while cries out 
and calls for a halt, but it never advises a return to primitive 
Simplicity. It raises a gale and a few boats are overturned. 
Then there is calm again. What can be done ? Laotzse tells us. 
This is what he teaches in the Tao-Teh-King: "By undivided 
attention to the soul, by restraining the passions and letting 
gentleness sway it, it is possible to become an infant (to continue 
as a child). By purifying the mind of phantasms it is possible 
to remain without a spot. ' ' This then is what can be done : re- 
straining the passions and purifying the mind of false thoughts 
and illusions. 

The Tao-Teh-King (XVI) continues, "Having empted your- 
self of everything, guard your tranquillity and remain where you 
are. ' ' Exactly ! ' ' Eemain where you are, ' ' that is, in Simplicity, 
for Simplicity is restored when self is emptied of " every thing. ' ' 
Says the book : * ' This going back to one 's origin is called peace, ' ' 
"Beturning to the root means rest," and, is a new Beginning. 
' ' This going back to the root is called preservation, and, he who 
is in preservation is enlightened, and, to be enlightened means 
to be royal, and to be royal means to be celestial, and, to be celes- 
tial means to be of Tao. ' ' 

I said as a commentary upon Laotzse J s words "remain 
where you are, ' ' that ' ' Simplicity is restored when self is emp- 
tied of everything. ' ' That is dark talk unless I elucidate it, and, 
happily, I think I can do it by calling in the famous Meister 
Eckardt to help me. Meister Eckardt lived in the fourteenth 
century ; he was a German Mystic and besides this a deep psy- 
chologist. He was at one time laboring to assure his listeners 



NAMELESS SIMPLICITY 65 

that they did not need to fear God's damnation and anger on 
account of their sins, for said he, when the will in yon is changed, 
everything is changed — Yea ! never was ! That is to say, in as 
much as the will is the center or the all of man, then, when the 
will is no more what it was, all that belonged to that former 
state is no more either. The sinner being radically turned or 
changed is subjectively pure and simple again. Objectivity be- 
ing outside would take its own course, or, in other words, the 
objective deed and the sin are two different affairs. The sin 
being subjective, and, not objective, vanishes the moment the 
will swings round — "Yea! it never was," as Eckardt said, hav- 
ing no root anywhere in the subject, and, the subject being in 
the everlasting "Now," there can be neither Past nor Future 
for it, consequently, the sin neither was, nor is, nor will be. 

Apply this to what I said about the self being emptied of 
"everything," and, that that act would restore Simplicity, and 
you will readily see the truth and the profound signification of 
the word "Simplicity." By "emptying the self" is to be under- 
stood what Eckardt meant by the turning round of the will, and, 
by the restoration of Simplicity is to be understood the restora- 
tion of the eternal "Now." All this is psychology, or the mys- 
tery of the working of the soul or self. To put it in theological 
language, it means that God's anger is gone and forgiveness is 
absolute by the turn of will. But it does not mean, that karma 
is wiped out arbitrarily. The objective side of my deed remains 
for me to atone for, not because God does these things half- 
hearted or imperfectly, nay, simply because in my growth,, I 
have reached no further than the deeds of the karma. I must 
labor further with my deeds, otherwise I shall never grow ob- 
jectively, and, that I must. 

What further can be done? Laotzse teaches it in the Tao- 
Teh-King (XV). It is asked: "May a man not make muddy 
water clear by keeping it still?" We answer yes, because we be- 
lieve in the original goodness of man. By keeping still, that is 
to say, by abstaining from evil, the mud will sink and the water 
be clear again. The mud is not evil in itself, it is only in its 
wrong place, when stirred up in the water. No action is either 
good or evil in itself, but it may be so, when prompted by some- 
body's wish or when out of order. 

Again, the teaching is (XXXVII) : "Nameless Simplicity" 
would produce absence of desire, and, "Rest would return, and, 
thus the world would regenerate itself." Can there be any doubt 



66 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

about it? It is the loss of Simplicity and the sinking into the 
complexity of things that has wrecked humanity and brought 
about the frightful moral ruin we see about us. Therefore, if 
Simplicity could be restored the world would righten itself, as 
does the ship when the shifted cargo is thrown overboard. We 
need to-day single mindedness, candor, and disinterested teach- 
ers to give the example of a life in Simplicity. No social nor 
political revolution is enough. We must go much deeper. When 
I think of these conditions my mind runs into the scenes in the 
Apocalypse and I perceive all kinds of horrors coming to pro- 
duce suitable conditions. 

No doubt some will argue that no Simplicity or return of 
childlikeness can reform the world. And they will say that 
much more radical means will be needed. Those who argue that 
way are wrong, and, they are ignorant about the dynamic forces 
that work in Nature and human life. 

Laotzse knew the truth and spoke with insight when he 
said: (XLIII) "The weakest thing in the world will override 
the strongest." — (XXXVII) "Tao is quiescent, yet leaves noth- 
ing undone." — (XXXVI) "The soft and the weak overcome the 
hard and the strong.' ' — (XXXV) "Tao is as nothing, yet in its 
uses it is inexhaustible. ' ' — (IV) "Tao is without limitation; its 
depth is the source of whatever is."— (XL VIII) "By non-act- 
ion there is nothing which can not be effected." — (LII) "To re- 
main gentle is to be unconquerable." — (LIV) "Whoever de- 
velops Tao in the world will make Virtue triumph." — (LV) 
"What is not of Tao, soon comes to an end." — (LXI) "A wo- 
man conquers a man by continual quietness." — (LXVII) "Gen- 
tleness is always victorious." — (LXXIV) "The celestial Tao 
does not strive, yet overcomes everything." All these quota- 
tions fully bear out my contention that Laotzse 's teaching about 
the weak overcoming and mastering the strong, is a teaching 
that represents Nature's method. 

i i The weakest thing Laotzse knows of is water. Of that he 
says : (LXXVIII) "Nothing on earth is so weak and yielding as 
water ; yet for breaking down the strong it has no equal. " (VTII) 
"It can get into the most inaccessible places and that without 
striving. It is therefore like Tao." Taoism has studied water 
very closely and Taoists constantly quote texts about it. I will 
give you one, rather lengthy, but to the point. From "History 
of the Great Light," a famous Taoist text by Huai-Nan-Tsze, 
Prince of Kuang Ling, I quote as follows about water : 



WATER 67 

" There is nothing in the world so weak as water; yet its 
power is such that it has no bounds ; its depth is such that it can- 
not be fathomed. In length it is without limit; in distance it has 
no shores ; in its flows and ebbs, its increase and decrease, it is 
measureless. When it rises to the sky, it produces rain and 
dew; when it falls upon the earth, it gives richness and moist- 
ure; there is no creature in the world to whom it does not im- 
part life, and nothing that it does not bring to completion. It 
holds all things in its wide embrace with perfect impartiality; 
its graciousness extends even to creeping things and tiny in- 
sects, without any expectation of reward. Its wealth is sufficient 
to supply the wants of the whole world, without fear of exhaus- 
tion; its virtue is bestowed upon the people at large, and yet 
there is no waste. Its flow is ever onward — ceaseless and un- 
limited ; its subtlety such that it cannot be grasped in the hand. 
Strike it, you hurt it not; stab it, you cause no wound; cut it, 
you cannot sever it in twain; apply fire to it, it will not burn. 
Whether it runs deep or shallow, seen or unseen, taking differ- 
ent directions, flowing this way or that, without order or de- 
sign, it can never be utterly dispersed ; its cutting power is such 
that it will work its way through stone and metal ; its strength so 
great, that the whole world is succored by it, or (literally trans- 
lated) it is able to support the ships of the whole world on its 
broad bosom. It floats lazily through the regions of formless- 
ness, foaming and fluttering above the realms of obscurity, that 
is to say, in the forms of clouds; it worms its way backwards 
and forwards among valleys and water courses ; it seethes and 
overflows its banks in vast and desert wilds. Whether there be 
a superfluity of it or a scarcity, the world is supplied according 
to its requirements for receiving and for imparting moisture to 
created things, without respect to precedence in time. Where- 
fore there is nothing either generous or mean about it, for it 
flows and rushes with echoing reverberations throughout the 
vast expanse of earth and heaven. It cannot be said to have a 
left side or a right, filling everything as it does ; it winds and 
meanders backwards and forwards, this way and that, being co- 
existent in point of time with the entire Universe — for which 
cause its virtue may be called perfect. And how comes it that 
water is able thus to bring its virtue to perfection in the world? 
It is because of its gentleness, weakness, fertilizing properties 
and lubricity." And Laotzse himself said: "That which is the 
weakest thing in all the world is able to overcome the strongest. 



68 THE INNEE LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

Issuing from nothingness it returns to nowhere, and from this 
I know that there is advantages in non-action. ' ' This was Tao- 
ism, and, you cannot gainsay a single point. 

Now remember, I was reading this to prove how powerful 
the weakest may be. Let me now quote a Western man, Euskin, 
on water. Indeed, Buskin's enthusiasm (Modern Painter's, Sec- 
tion V, " Truth of Water") ought to be ours : "Of all inorganic 
substances, acting in their own proper nature, and without as- 
sistance or combination, water is most wonderful. If we think 
of it as the source of all the changefulness and beauty which we 
have seen in the clouds; then as the instrument by which the 
earth we have contemplated, was modelled into symmetry, and 
its crags chiselled into grace ; then as (in the form of snow) it 
robes the mountains it has made, with that transcendant light 
which we could not have conceived if we had not seen; then as 
it exists in the foam of the torrent, in the iris which spans it, in 
the morning mist which rises from it, in the deep crystalline 
pools which mirror its hanging shore, in the broad lake and 
glancing river, finally, in that which is to all human minds the 
best emblem of universal, unconquerable power, the wild, various, 
fantastic, tameless unity of the sea; what shall we compare to 
this mighty, this universal element, for glory and for beauty? 
or how shall we follow its eternal cheerfulness of feeling? It is 
like trying to paint a soul. ' ' 

I quote this, too, to prove how powerful the weak may be. 
How marvellous is not Beauty and yet it is intangible. Beauty 
can take hold of a human heart, when neither truth nor goodness 
can move it! 

You have now heard a great deal about the weakness of 
water and you have verified the truth of all you have heard. Let 
me now turn the leaf over and show some of the marvels this 
Weakness performs, and combining the two descriptions as sym- 
bolical of Simplicity, it will readily be seen, that Simplicity is 
a workmaster of miracles and that we never can fail essentially 
in life if we identify ourselves with it. Water covers seven- 
tenths of the surface of the earth. Not much left, is there? In 
connection with atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen, it surrounds 
the earth to a height of two hundred miles, it is estimated. 
Surely we may well say that we live and breathe in water, yea, 
we may even say that we are made of water, because three- 
fourths of the weight of all animals and plants is water. Cer- 
tain it is, that our body could neither be built nor sustained with- 



WATER 69 

out water. It is water and light that transform the inorganic in 
the plant to the organic, and thns becomes the source of our en- 
ergy. This is directly important for us personally. But water 
exists not alone for us. Simplicity is not only a human virtue. 
Water, though seldom chemically pure, is without smell and 
taste, two of the most animal senses. Being without smell and 
taste points to its freedom from anything that can be called 
rottenness ; moreover, water is cooling and a solvent for all that 
which man normally takes into his body and assimilates. Apply 
this to Simplicity with which Laotze and his followers compare 
it, and, surely, you can see Simplicity as a "cooling" force, and 
as a " solvent' ' of many difficulties. 

Though water is soft and pleasant, it hides enormous 
strength. It is composed of oxygen and hydrogen, two of the 
most powerful gases. Bring these two together under the blow- 
pipe and they unite in a violent explosion. Simplicity contains 
in itself two equally strong powers : activity and passivity, and, 
where these two are brought together under the blow-pipe of 
circumstance, they produce terrific effects. It has been sug- 
gested that if the earth ever burns up, as old traditions say it 
will, then the energy to do it will arise from the Ocean, because 
the Ocean is simply at present concealing the two fire elements 
which can and will burn anything. It can then rationally be in- 
ferred from this that Simplicity is the same power and the 
same energy, only on another plane. Do you not think it worth 
while to pay some attention to this subject of water and Simplic- 
ity, as taught in so unique a way in the Tao-Teh-King? Where 
is the strength equal to Simplicity? 

I will wander away a little from the direct subject of my 
chapter and give you a few problems to think about in connection 
with water and Simplicity. Perhaps you will have more respect 
for the Hindus' bathing in the waters of the Ganges, and for the 
Egyptians of old who held the Nile to be sacred and even thought 
the rivers were gods. Perhaps you will also reconsider your 
notions about the frequent illustrations so common among ancient 
people and in the East to-day. Perhaps you will think of your, 
own bath in a different way, and, perhaps you will bathe differ- 
ently now, than you used to. In old Babylonia, proselytes were 
initiated by baptism and the custom was borrowed by the Le- 
vites and transmitted to the church. In Ex. XIX-20, we are told 
that Jehovah would not come down and give the law before the 
people had washed their clothes. In John's Gospel (III-5) it is 



70 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

reported that Jesus declared to Nicodemus that nobody could 
enter the kingdom of God before he was born of water and 
spirit. All these things and the suggestions theyhave called forth, 
I want you to think over in connection with Simplicity. Your 
meditations upon them can only stir you up to a consideration 
of all the marvels that we pass by in the ordinary day life, and, 
call out a desire to change and do better in the future. Anybody 
penetrating into these mysteries will understand much of the 
hidden meaning in the voices of the sea, I spoke of in my second 
chapter, and can neither drink a glass of water nor wander on 
the seashore without marvelling and thinking of mysteries and 
of veils that do not hide but do reveal. So much about water. 
Laotzse does not speak of grass, but I will do so in con- 
nection with this subject of Simplicity, because grass represents 
in the organic world the same state of mind and heart as water 
does in the inorganic. The peculiar character of the grass is its 
power to adapt itself to the service of men. In its marvellous 
Simplicity of build it shows humility and cheerfulness. It is 
satisfied to be trodden on and fed upon. It seems even to cheer 
up under all kinds of violence and ill usage. Cut it down, and, 
next day, it multiplies its shoots and sends a rich perfume to 
you from its withering leaves. It keeps itself green through the 
winter and greets you in fruitful strength next spring. Have 
you ever studied that dainty little spear of fluted green, we call 
grass? It is more marvellous than any church spire, and it 
teaches the same lesson every spring when it rises up from the 
soil with song of glorification to the Sun above, and a silent 
prayer of thanks for preservation to mother earth below. Its 
Simplicity is so great, so profound, that but few notice it long 
enough to speak about it, yet, we should know no fair earth if 
the grass did not fulfil its mission. The earth would be nothing 
but desolation and we should not be among the living. Nature's 
primary object with grass seems to be the protection of the soil. 
If the soil were not protected by an organic covering it would 
speedily pass away and only the bare rocks remain, because 
floods would wash it away and the sun would burn it up. Sim- 
plicity fills a similar office. The destructive power of man's 
heterogeneous culture would lay him waste very soon. He keeps 
himself in check by retirements upon the conservative forces of 
existence. The grass family feeds us. All our cereals come 
from the grasses. The grass family comprises over three hun- 
dred genera and not less than three thousand five hundred spe- 



GRASS 71 

cies. In grain the grasses furnish a larger amount of suste- 
nance to animal life than all other tribes of plants together, and, 
thus they are truly the physical basis of all civilization. Eeflect 
upon this and you will soon see that Simplicity serves the same 
purpose in the higher life; that is, that the Inner Life so to say, 
lives upon it. The grass is the commonest of common things, 
and, therefore the ever-present god. The universality of grass 
is one of the most poetical of facts in the economy of the world, 
and, its name is so universal in its signification, that I may al- 
most identify grass with Nature, The word "grass" means to 
grow, to sprout, and, the word "Nature" means the same; that 
is, to bear, to bring forth. You have heard much about Simplic- 
ity. Does it not all find its realization in grass ? 

As grass is earth's garment, so is Simplicity the most beau- 
tiful garment the soul can find. Both grass and Simplicity are 
found watching "in all the places that the eye of heaven visits." 
They love each other like brooks and the watercourses. They 
follow each other and make gardens for the spiritual man. The 
grass family has never betrayed its trust; neither has Simplic- 
ity. They are back of all man's love and have covered over the 
sands of sin which human faithlessness has washed down upon 
so many fair flowers of spirituality. The grasses have spread 
out the garment and Simplicity has taken the seat thereon. 

There is still one more family likeness I wish to point out. 
It is most interesting and convincing. Grasses are endogens 
and their growth is endogenous ; that is, they grow from inside 
and not by concentric rings as for instance the oak. They in- 
crease by the intercalation of new cellular and vascular tissues 
among those already formed. They are "inside growers" and 
so are lillies and palms. You will at once see the similarity to 
Simplicity for that certainly is of inside growth and not of the 
outside. 

You can now see why I quoted as my text the poetic sen- 
timent, I started with: 

" . . . Our human souls 
Cling to the grass and water brooks," 



THE SAGE 
V. 

IN the third chapter I spoke of the mystics and toward the 
end I retold a story from John Tauler about a poor man, 
whose clothes were not worth three cents, and, who sat 
like a beggar at the church door, and, how John Tauler was 
sent to this man for heavenly wisdom. I retold their conversa- 
tion and you remember how this beggar triumphed over the 
learned Dr. Tauler because of his Union with God, a union at- 
tained as he told him by self-abandonment and absolute love of 
God. We agreed then that the beggar was a Sage. Now I offer 
you an Eastern parallel to this tale from the Middle Ages. The 
difference between that tale and the one which you shall now 
hear is this, that Laotzse, who gives the information, speaks as 
a teacher and instructs us in the language of Simplicity about 
the sage. The Western and the Eastern tales are simply two 
presentations of the same truth and image. Who and what is 
the sage? Before I give you passages from the Tao-Teh-King 
on that subject, it may be well, that I say a few words about 
the great man in order to distinguish the two. The Sage and 
the Great Man are two distinct phenomena. Nietzsche was not a 
sage, nor were Caesar, Leonardo, Michael Angelo, Spinoza, Beet- 
hoven, Copernicus. They were men of genius and greatness. 
Jesus, Buddha, Laotzse were Sages, because they were embodi- 
ments of great love and started men on a course of life, more 
human than that mankind had followed before. The life they 
started mankind in was mahatmic , that is to say, it was a sub- 
lime blending and union of the opposite factors of existence, a 
union, that does not destroy but raises the opposites above the 
world by a complete transformation. The others were great 
brains and furnished mankind with many accessories of life. 
They promoted culture but not holiness. Jeremy Bentham and 
John Stuart Mill held Utilitarianism to be the characteristic of 



THE SAGE 73 

the Great Man and Hippolyte Taine considered him an embodi- 
ment of the spirit of his time and the will of the people. The 
world has readily accepted these opinions and judges greatness 
by these standards. In contradistinction to these, I now shall 
give you Laotze's definition of the sage, and the difference will 
appear at once, and, you will see which of the two groups you 
belong to or want to follow. 

I will preface my definition of the sage, such a Laotze 
sees him, by leading your thought beforehand to observe how 
different Laotze's view is from the view of a sage we get from 
India, for instance. The views we get from India tend to de- 
press rather than to raise the value and significance of life. 
They contain no incentives to work or to put forth any efforts 
against irrationality and wickedness. The Hindu flees the world. 
Not so Laotze's sage. The main key to him is activity. He re- 
mains in the world as an example ; he encourages us to struggle 
for freedom and never condemns us, though he laments that 
the world is so bad and so irrational. You see the difference? 
It is my opinion that we in this country can learn far more from 
Laotze on how to live, than we can learn from India. If one 
wants to become a yogi, and wishes to throw away all human 
value and become a mere wheel in the mechanism of nature, let 
him go to India. If one wants to be a sage and yet live in the 
world as a useful member of society, let him study and follow 
Laotze. The last mentioned object in life, I believe, is Amer- 
ican. 

Who and what is the sage, the holy man? "The sage is 
occupied only with that which is without self-assertion and he 
conveys his instructions by silence. He does not refuse the 
world's ten thousand things, but does not possess them. He 
works, but claims not the fruit of his action. He has merit, but 
does not dwell on it and therefore no one robs him of it." (II.) 
In short, he is in the world, but not of it. If you remember the 
description of Simplicity, you will see that the sage is Sim- 
plicity realized. The sage and Simplicity are two sides of the 
same truth. They may be compared to the approaches to the 
bridge and the two voices spoken of in former chapters. The 
sage is neither self-sufficient nor does he claim the honor for 
that which Tao accomplishes through him, nor even the fruits 
thereof. How thoroughly the character of water and grass as 
shown in the last chapter! "The sage knows no distinctions; 
he has no 'loves,' but looks upon all men and things as made for 



74 THE INNEB LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

holy uses' ' (V.), that is to say, separateness does not exist for 
him. Men and women and things are seen sub specie eternitatis; 
only their eternal valne counts with him. From a worldly point 
of view this looks like indifference. It is no indifference. It 
is wisdom; for consider: there are men and women enough all 
around us. They are common enough; they are everywhere 
and as plentiful as workers in a beehive or anthill. The mere' 
fact of shape and organic structure is nothing remarkable. 
Nature uses the same sex-model throughout all her kingdoms; 
everywhere she moves by means of dual forms. But where is 
the one among either of these sexes who is more, something 
more than merely a human form? The one who is a species 
rather than a specimen? The one to whom we can apply the 
eternal measure? The woman who will and can be recognized 
because she is Woman and not a special and separate individ- 
ual? The man, who is not a semblance, but a reality? Where 
are the ones who cause us to exclaim, "Ah, I have seen a soul! 
I have felt the Presence ! ' ' Such exclamations are proper when 
we see a man or a woman who uses the body with absolute and 
joyous freedom; and whose mind rests in majestic peace and 
who is master of both. Such an one is mahatmic, or a sage, a 
great spirit. We have mahatmic spirits of various degrees 
among us. They are the ones, whom the sage considers; the 
others are children, and some are merely possibilities. In the 
world it is heresy to say anything against the world and its 
things. The world wants all of us to be as worldly as it is 
itself, and to look only for self-interest and provide "bread 
and play" for the mob. In common justice to the sage we 
must, however, say that he has as much right to live in his own 
way as the world has to live its way. The world does not 
consider him a valuable asset, why should it complain because 
he sits apart? Let him alone, he does not hurt the world. 

The Tao-Teh-King thinks well of the sage and declares 
(VII) also that "the wise man is indifferent to himself and thus 
becomes the greatest among men. Because he does not seek 
his own he accomplishes his own." As little as the wise man 
seeks his own, so little does he proclaim himself as the "greatest 
among men. ' ' By acting that way he gives the world no cause 
for irritation or hatred. Why he succeeds by " indifference, ' ' I 
have elsewhere explained. It is because this sort of indifference 
is Simplicity. In confirmation of my explanations, I will here 
again quote the Tao-Teh-King on the subject. The reasons for the 



THE SAGE 75 

sage's success and his superiority is this, that (XXII) he adapts 
himself to Tao, therefore he is "preserved to the end" and 
becomes a model even for the unwilling. He "bends himself/ ' 
therefore he becomes straight, and he is "filled because he 
empties himself.'' Though unknown and unrecognized he toils 
incessantly for the good. Though that toil wears him away, he 
is constantly renewed. On this point of toiling and wearing 
away, yet not dying, the world least of all can understand him. 
The reason why he does not die lies, of course, in the fact that 
he draws life from the deepest wells of existence, and those 
wells are only open in the sage. The deep wells never dry up ; 
they are not filled by surface water; they flow with perennial 
streams which come from the innermost earth. It was that 
kind of wells Isaac was told to dig up when sent to dig up i t the 
old wells.' ' To the sage, work is not toil; it is recreation, 
growth and laudation of Tao. Work is the key to all spiritual- 
ity. Because the world does not know the difference between 
toil and work it condemns the sage as an idler and a useless 
member of society. It is further said (XXVI) that the sage 
never loses his gravity and daily walks with dignity. He never 
forgets himself even if glorious palaces should belong to him. 
This is readily understood when it is realized that he^ is a 
quietist. His Quietism is "concealed enlightenment' ' to the 
world; nevertheless in it he becomes the good savior, a savior 
to whom nobody and nothing is ' ' outcast. ' ' In the mysterious 
balance of things, he outweighs all misery and degradation by 
being "the enlightened one" and one who is free. In his in- 
tensity, the sage balances the world's immensity. Being one 
he outnumbers the many. Because he rests in the endless, he 
commands the finite. He was always in the world, but the 
world did not know it. In connection with the gravity of the 
sage stands the fact that he (XXIX) "abandons pleasure, ex- 
travagance and indulgence. ' ' That he should be far from pomp 
and levity is a matter of course. But the sage is no pietist or 
hypocrite. On the contrary, he is a devotee of beauty, beauty 
both in the human and in nature. Being rooted in Simplicity 
he can appreciate beauty as nobody else. Simplicity being the 
kernel of all beauty, he and beauty are one. Beauty to him, is, 
of course, not show nor stimulated desire, it is the supreme form, 
that otherness which only from time to time strikes common 
people and professionals ; that power, which lit upon Chaos and 
Heaven and Earth came forth, and, became cosmic order. 



76 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

Again it is said about the Wise Man (XL VII) that "he 
does not travel, yet he has knowledge; that he does not see 
things, yet he defines them." How would an emperor or even 
a police inspector get along if he did not get daily and hourly 
reports from everywhere? How would any manager of affairs 
who did not see for himself and learn by reports, how would 
he "define" things or affairs. He could not do it. He depends 
upon a complicated state machinery and reports. Not so the 
sage. It appears that there is a universal exchange bureau 
in the spirit to which he has immediate access, access at any 
time and anywhere. The sage lives in the spirit, hence things 
appear to him not fragmentary, but essentially and as they 
really are, both in their primary forms and in any and all of 
their derived forms. His world is the sum total of all the factors 
of the universe; factors which are both positive and negative; 
factors of both birth and death ; factors which are the forms of 
existence. His world has been described in all that which 
Laotzse says about Tao ; in all that which Plato dreamed about 
Ideas, and Jacob Bohme revealed about the Nature-powers 
called "mothers.' ' 

The sage does not strive. He knows that Tao is One and 
he follows Teh, or virtue, which is neither more nor less than 
following Tao, for Teh is Tao realized. As little as anything 
can be taken from Tao or added to Tao, so little can anything be 
taken from Teh or added to Teh. Teh, virtue, is a constant. 
Why then should the sage either strive or care for names or 
distinctions; they can only be human inventions, and cannot 
affect either Tao or Teh. The sage wastes no energy in striving, 
he applies himself to Tao, and, Tao gives him the true per- 
ception or understanding of the nature of things and their value. 
He also applies himself to Teh, or Virtue, which instructs him 
how to use things and by right use of things he attains power. 
Said a Taoist : ' ' The man of virtue, Teh, remains indifferent to 
his environment. His integrity is thereby undisturbed and his 
knowledge transcends the senses. As a result of that his heart 
expands to enfold those who take refuge in it. Such is the man 
of complete virtue. ' ' 

It is said of one who does not strive : "He will bury gold in 
the hills and cast his pearls in the sea and not strive for wealth 
or for fame. He will not rejoice in old age or grieve over early 
death, nor will he pride himself of success or feel sorrows in 
failure. He will not feel rich because he ascends the throne, 



THE SAGE 77 

nor glory because lie may rule the world. His real glory is to 
know the One, Tao, and that all things are but phases of the 
One." It is interesting to compare this sublime indifference to 
the stoicism of Marcus Aurelius. The Eoman looks upon such 
things with contempt. The Taoist treats them as unimportant. 
Both stand aloof and separate from them. The sage has "the 
gift that abides," the anointed eye, which sees the light that 
never fails. God still speaks to man. The mountains especially 
call to the sage and they show him the hidden life. In ever- 
ascending scale he rises upon the spiritual sense of all scrip- 
tures, and praying in the spirit he goes out into the wilderness. 
Everywhere he is in the midst of "the salvation of God"; no- 
where is the divine face hidden; "the little things," as well 
as the first born, the "sons of God," guide him. Thus and 
therefore, it will be seen, that though he does not travel as the 
curious and the idle do, nor examine as the learned do, he never- 
theless knows everything. 

It may now sound surprising and contradictory to hear that 
the Tao-Teh-King also says (XLIX) that the sage's heart is 
not set upon anything, that he has no fixed opinions, or opinions 
which he calls his own; but a little consideration will show that 
that is necessarily so. How could he who lives in the universal, 
stay in the particular? He would not even claim the universal 
as his own. Only small souls beat the drums and the smaller 
they are, the larger the drum. Professionals especially are 
zealous about their so-called discoveries and panaceas. Con- 
trary to all such, the wise man, says the book (XLIX), "ac- 
commodates himself to the minds of others." That is to say, 
he does not force his hearers or pupils to exalt him or to speak 
in the forms of his thought or copy him. He accommodates 
himself to them. If his hearer is an artist, he speaks in art 
phraseology; if his pupil is a philosopher, he falls in with him 
and uses abstract terms ; to a woman he speaks in life terms and 
with love, and, to the child he uses pictorial illustrations. To 
all he is sympathetic, and, they confide in him. The sage "uni- 
versalizes his heart" (XLIX) and thus becomes a savior. 

And how does he thus become a savior? He does it by such 
behavior as I already have described; a behavior, the key of 
which is Simplicity. Salvation is not brought to anybody by 
forcing them into another's mode of thinking or living. Sal- 
vation comes to whosoever needs it, by letting him reform him- 
self, by letting him overcome himself, and thereby allowing the 



78 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

Higher Self to reassert itself in him. People would be righteous 
if let alone. It is pressure from outside and the preaching of 
false notions that cause people to do wrong. Eemove desires by 
putting no false value upon things, and nobody will desire them. 
It is the law that makes sin, said St. Paul. Leaving out for the 
present any discussion about the metaphysics of "the law of 
contrariety, ' ' so called, this can be said, that by making distinc- 
tions we create crime and antagonize Tao and Teh. Rightly 
says Laotzse, that by setting value on rare things of sense we 
disturb the peace of the mind. (III.) Who can deny it? Pre- 
dilections are the cause of sin and crime and our alienation from 
Tao and Teh. If nobody made distinctions, no breaking of rules 
would take place. The human heart is not radically wrong. 
The core is right and sound. Our book says (LXII) that "Tao 
is the guardian of all things," and does not even forsake those 
who are not good." Yea, the book even says (LI) that "Teh 
(or virtue) nourishes all things, increases them, protects them 
and watches over them. ' ' In the face of such declarations, who 
dares throw stones? who dares malign the people? Let the 
hypocrites go and hide! Do not stand in the way of a soul! 
Every flower will seek the sun if let alone; none turns away. 
The sage is the good savior ! and the sage never advertises him- 
self, and the sage is always poor; he carries his jewels in his 
bosom (LXX). He never speaks up in the congregation. Those 
who do not know, do the talking. All this about the sage, I 
have read in the Tao-Teh-King. Go and read for yourself. You 
may find much more. 

You have thus far, in this chapter and in the last, heard 
much in praise of Simplicity and about its natural types, water 
and grass. You have also heard who and what the sage is, and 
how he uses Simplicity. All of this has conveyed ideas of Real- 
ity to you. It must have appeared that Simplicity is something 
fundamental; something structural, something Kosmic. 

Let me now finally translate the word Simplicity into moral 
concepts and thus come a little nearer to our human existence. 
Simplicity then is first of all sincerity. Sincerity in the Latin 
is sine cera y "without a flaw." Certainly Simplicity is com- 
pleteness and uprightness. It is a vase that rings true when 
struck. Simplicity is whole-hearted and simple-hearted, or, in 
other words, it is synonomous with singleness. Plato applied 
the word Simplicity, ovn\as (aplous) to God, "who is," he said, 
"perfectly simple and true both in word and deed." Plato uses 



THE SAGE 79 

the word Simplicity again in the Republic about the just man. 
He means, and we ought to mean by the word Simplicity, that 
a just man is perfectly at one with himself in motive, aim and 
end in his relations to the Divine and to his fellowmen. 

In an old work, "The Testament of the Twelve Patriachs," 
a work of Hebrew origin and character, Issachar, the fifth son 
of Jacob and Leah, is represented as Simplicity, and, he repre- 
sents himself to his children as one who has walked all his life 
in Simplicity. He lays emphasis upon his being a husbandman 
and recommends his children to find contentment in husbandry 
and to shun mercantile pursuits because these lead to transgres- 
sions. That of being a husbandman is a point I would emphasize 
as a necessity for the full realization of Simplicity. City life, 
with its complexity, is ruinous. The old adage is true: "God 
made the country and the devil made the city." By being a 
husbandman, I do not exactly mean being a farmer, though 
Issachar was it. I mean that country life, life in the open, and 
not city life is the true life. If we cannot flee the city, we can 
nevertheless in many ways place ourselves in direct relation to 
the country. Let us do that! An outlook to Nature will make 
a path to Simplicity ! And now in conclusion : What can be done 
for the restoration of Simplicity! We talk and boast of culture 
and civilization, and what is it? Nothing but sham! I say 
" nothing,' ' and do so perfectly conscious of what I am saying, 
and do not think I am exaggerating. The proof is to be found 
in all the misery around us, a misery that never ends. 

I am not blind to the marvellous industrial and commercial 
progress of the world. I profit by it in many ways, and so do 
you, but eternally, what is it? It is not as stable as clouds, and, 
those who promote the so-called culture, make gains that last 
no longer than mosquitoes in the fall. The only lasting thing they 
gain is terrible strength of will. That lasts, and, will send them 
back like blind moles to burrow in the earth. By and by the 
Powerful and the sages will change places. To die poor now 
but wise is great gain. 

Cannot something effectually be done to introduce Simplic- 
ity? Can we not call to arms all those who have realized the 
Overman in themselves, as they say? Why not send them to 
vitalize that Overman? Let them introduce Simplicity! Who 
will be first to preach and practice it? 

I now come to that special purpose I had in mind, and to 
which I referred before. My purpose is to connect Simplicity, 



80 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

the sage and the Tao-Teh-King, and that not merely as logically 
related, but standing in a life relation to each other as Mother, 
Father and Child. Before I proceed to do so, let me explain 
my method in these papers. In these chapters I am endeavoring 
to translate all scholastic and intellectual terms and expressions 
into living conceptions, into the forms that answer to our per- 
sonal existence. In all of us there lie images, words, sounds, 
symbols, and so forth, of various kinds ; they are the epitomes 
of ourselves, and by means of these images we, in the most 
direct manner, get hold of ourselves and are taught. I am trying 
to get hold of such images in you, in order to explain my subject. 
It is easy enough to spiritualize any idea or conception, and to 
raise it very high, but the result is that it becomes so utterly 
attenuated that it loses all practical value. As soon as an idea 
is so thoroughly denaturalized that it has become a mere noth- 
ing, it has also ceased to awaken anybody who lives in flesh and 
blood. I say, it is easy enough to wander off into highflown 
language and poetic imagery, but it is very difficult to move 
the other way; and yet that is most needed, because people 
need a foothold, and they get it not by a talk above their heads, 
but by bringing the truth and the spirit to them in tangible 
forms, in forms that correspond to their own lives and their 
own experiences. Inded, it is an old truth that "invisible things 
are discerned from the foundation of the world through the 
things which are made." And why is that the truth? Why is 
it self-evident? It is so, as John of the Cross says, because 
"spiritual things include them." By right use of visible and 
tangible things we may lay hold upon the invisible and intan- 
gible, because they are included in it as the higher in the lower. 
As I said, people need a foothold from whence they themselves 
can begin to work up on the Path. 

You remember I have laid much emphasis upon originality 
and have condemned all kinds of copying and ascribed much of 
humanity's misery to lack of originality and to copying. If a 
lecturer or a preacher can come down, not to platitudes or child- 
ish talk, but to the living images that lie in every human mind, 
he can reach that mind and do it good. By infusing those images 
with power, by purifying them, by electrifying them, by ex- 
plaining them to the mind that possesses them, that mind is 
infused with vigor and awakened to itself. Being awakened, it 
will live for itself and be on the Path, and, that it should be 
awakened and caused to live for itself is the object of all preach- 



IMAGES 81 

ing. A preaching that does not aim at that nor accomplish it is 
no more than babbling or beating the drum. 

If you will go back over the preceding chapters and re- 
examine them, you will see that I am struggling to do this very 
thing I am talking about. Instead of screwing the subjects up 
higher, I have attempted to take the scholastic machinery to 
pieces and I have substituted living powers for all mechanical 
and inorganic details. I have made all abstractions into living 
personalities; I have painted dramatic scenes and appealed to 
your feelings and love-nature rather than attempted to instruct. 
I have used veils that reveal, and, thus I have gained the same 
effects as Greek sculptors gained, when they wetted the drapery 
they put upon their models: they revealed, yet they never 
offended propriety. I have, if I may say so, rather "lowered' ' 
idealistic expressions; I have done that by clothing them in 
flesh and blood, and, I know I have attained some satisfactory 
results. An experiment with that which I have called Western 
and modern phraseology will prove more of a success than 
might have been expected. 

It is most singular, that this method which I have called 
Western and modern is the very method of the ancients. In the 
East, to-day as of old, all preaching and teaching is by personal 
intercourse, and, experience in European universities has shown 
that it is the only real way by which to impart spiritual seed. 
Abstract and mechanical subjects may well be taught from a 
platform, but spiritual life never. The reason for this is plain. 
Consciousness is more than a physical fact. In the Universal, 
the individual person is a species, but in the physical world an 
individual is almost meaningless. One crystal is like another; 
but one soul is not like another. All those highflown, abstract 
and difficult terms and phrases and conceptions in which so 
many teachers, both mystic and others, have buried that life 
which these terms and phrases originally stood for, all these 
terms and phrases are not of the spirit of the Orient. The West 
and part of Asia under western influence made them, partly in 
Greece, and partly elsewhere, during the development in the 
East of what is called Western progress, Western culture and 
civilization. In its attempt to gain a reasonable understanding 
of living forces and acts, the West and part of Asia invented all 
these terms and phrases and they unfortunately forgot the 
original aim and end, and forgot that these terms and phrases 
were only to be symbols and no more, and they forgot life alto- 



82 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

gether. They hugged and kissed petrifactions and do so now. 
By forcing posterity to learn by the brain and not by the heart, 
we have now come to our present desperate conditions. We 
have the shell, but the nut is not in it. 

I am trying to retranslate terms and phrases into life. Like 
so many others, I have lived in the blind man's paradise and 
been satisfied with painted canvases and with words. But 
time came when I could no longer square the murmur of the 
forest with the pages of a book; nor comprehend why I 
should not worship a beautiful body, but raise my eyes with de- 
votion to a manufactured and unsubstantial puppet god. Time 
came when I could no more find peace in thoughts formulated by 
others and not by myself; at that time I began to use my own 
innate images as symbols for my thought. Time came, also, 
when my will refused to be tied conventionally; at that time I 
dared to be myself, and I entered the Path. 

Having found it necessary for myself to give the life-element 
its absolute freedom and experiencing it as the first step in the 
approach to the Path, I now apply the experience and present 
to you what I call the "inside" of those terms and phrases which 
philosophy and ethics abound in. I translate them into life- 
forms, which I have experienced, and some of them must strike 
you as they have struck me. And I know they are of eternal 
value. I am confident that if you start with life-images, your 
own reason and the image in you will clothe these life-images 
with their celestial garments and you will discover yourself to be 
on the Path. It is my experience that nobody can enter the 
Path by any other method. And upon examination you will 
find that it is the true psychological process. It is Nature's 
way when she is allowed freedom with us. 

Now, then, applying this principle of translating philosoph- 
ical and ethical terms into terms of the living, I say that Sim- 
plicity is but another term for mother and that the sage is but 
another term for father and that the book, the Tao-Teh-King, 
is but another term for child. I mean to say that the love-power 
in us will feel Simplicity as the Mother-power. And that the 
wisdom-power in us will recognize the Sage as the Father-power, 
and, when I shall have spoken about the book, you readily will 
acknowledge that the book must be the child-power. Indeed, 
this translation seems to me so simple that I feel it ought to 
have been unnecessary to mention it. 

These conceptions, mother-father-child, are living-forces in 
us, and lie nearer to us than the abstract terms Simplicity, sage 



THE MOTHEE 83 

and book. We can grasp them by our inherent vitality and the 
image, and thus at-one ourselves with them, and having done 
that we can hereafter raise them to any potential power we wish. 
In the conceptions mother-father-child we get living footholds 
and cannot lose ourselves in fancies or miss the real in existence. 
They will readily transform themselves into the Path for us. 

But I must proceed. From this talk about Simplicity in 
the last chapter and about the sage in this, I come naturally to 
the subject of the ancient people who were so far ahead of us, 
and to the books they have left behind them. I will therefore 
say something about the recovery of the ancient wisdom and 
speak especially in praise of the Tao-Teh-King as one of the 
marvels of ancient wisdom. I was laughed at the other day 
when I recommended a certain learned man to read the Tao-Teh- 
King and advised him to learn something from people of an- 
other race and of prehistoric character. I urged the digging 
up of old wells, and as he was a minister, I referred to Isaac 
who dug up the ' ' old wells ' ' and found them flowing with fresh 
water. With scorn he refused to have anything to do with the 
ancients, barbarians, he called them. He wanted, he said, only 
the newest new; only the mental products of this, his own age. 
For, said he, ' ' there is and can be no connection between myself 
and those ancient ones." I never argue with a man that stands 
in his own light. What would be the use? I left him, only 
asking him if there were any connection between him and his 
ancestors of yore? Did you make yourself? How about your 
nationality and race characteristics? What vital connection is 
there or can there be between you and the theology you learned 
at the seminary? Of course, the answers to these questions 
would refute his conceit, but I did not force the answers. To 
refuse to read such an old book as the one I referred to, or to 
learn of the ancients is as rational as not to recognize the spring 
of the day. Surely the day spring is older than any book. People 
cannot deny it. Why not deny it? But they do not. On that 
point Nature forces them to learn her lesson, it is so her minis- 
try; on other points, they are left free to act and unworthy as 
most of their free-will acts are. They arrogantly refuse to listen. 
This is another of the many faults I have pointed out from time 
to time in our modern life and another source of many of our 
troubles. 

An age cannot stand apart from the age that precedes it, 
as little as an individual can stand apart from its parents and 



84 THE INNEB LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

other ancestry. To learn what to-day means, we must return 
to yesterday's task and its lessons, be they finished or not. 
Nature's method points the lesson. The spring of the day or 
morning ; the noon, and the dusk and the night resemble Spring, 
Summer, Autumn and Winter. Nature has arranged it so, by 
making the diurnal revolution of the earth upon its own axis 
correspond to the annual revolution of the earth around the 
sun. And Nature makes all her children move in that fashion, 
and by so doing she both repeats herself and teaches new lessons ; 
she constantly renews and constantly returns again to the same 
point, but on each stage she teaches something new and forces 
a new development. We are constantly in the midst of her, yet 
never see the beginning nor end, but we are constantly taught 
nevertheless. Anyone refusing to reconsider the old teachings 
is a disobedient child and must necessarily be crushed sooner or 
later, because the wheel of Nature 's rotation cannot be stopped. 
Modern culture is near being crushed because it does not follow 
Nature's method. It has cut itself off from Nature and at- 
tempts to rest upon self alone. Though I was laughed at, as I 
told you, I nevertheless recommend a return to the old wells, 
and I recommend that we dig them up again. From experience 
I know that modern culture does not contain the essential life. 
From experience of a long life, I also know that there is a 
stream of clear water flowing through much of the ancient learn- 
ing and that he who drinks of it never shall thirst again. One 
of the old wells that gushes forth such pure water is called the 
Tao-Teh-King. It is with this well, as with so many of the old 
wells, they must be dug up. The digger is the Inner Life and the 
sensible people of to-day who long for the Inner Life. 

Let me talk a little about wells and caves and on their sym- 
bolism, or, how they are to be revered, because they are veils 
that reveal; and not veils that cover up. I wish to speak of 
wells and caves because of the water that flows from them. In 
Nature they play a part <that resembles the work of the heart 
in our organism. As life flows from the heart and returns to it, 
so water flows from the caves and returns to them by way of tb® 
clouds. In my last lecture, I described at length the importance 
of water, such as Laotzse and his disciples saw it, and I added 
what Science had to contribute ; it is therefore quite natural that 
I now should say something about its source or sources. And 
whatever I shall say adds to the instruction given about Sim- 
plicity and the sage if you will make the application. 



NATUKE 85 

In the first place, wells or caves do not originate the water, 
to speak properly. They are the vessels that gather it and send 
it forth in different directions. In the Alps yon may climb a 
mountain, the St. Gotthardt, and from that one mountain see 
three rivers flow ont in various directions. The Ehine is the 
conflux of these three rivers. The three rivers start in icy 
caves. The three rivers united in one as the Ehine have been 
the leaders of much of the most important European history 
from the time of the Eomans. Why, we do not know. The fact 
is there. From three repositories on St. Gotthardt these rivers 
are sent forth. The mountain gathers the water and stores it 
up in glaciers and from these it fills the wells, and the wells 
give birth to the stream. The mountain, the glaciers, the caves 
and the streaias are ever the same, yet they are never old, but 
remain ever young and fresh. Ancient Druids and priests of 
Nerthus heard \he eternal passion of song that reverberated 
from each drop of water that fell in the cave. That same song 
is heard to-day, though not understood. In that song Mother 
Nature assures the devotee that though her children forsake 
her, she will forever and ever keep sending streams, young and 
fresh, into the world. Though people think only of using the 
streams for selfish purposes, for saw-mills, sailing and shipping, 
she will nevertheless continue to submit and ask no rewards. 
St. Gotthardt, of course, means "God's Heart," and the song is 
one of assurance that Love never shall cease to flow from God's 
heart. Look upon caves and wells and springs in that way and 
you shall see that such symbolism is even richer than other 
meanings often attributed to them. 

The Tao-Teh-King is such a mountain like St. Gotthardt, 
and from it springs three rivers : Tao and Teh and the King. Tao 
and Teh are living forces and King is the book containing them. 
No matter how much foolishness commentators fill it with, the 
original stream is as pure to-day as ever. And now I will tell 
you the story of its origin and you can interpret it yourself. The 
legend is, that Laotzse, disgusted with the corruption of the 
court, left his home in the territory of Chow, and in order to 
travel West as he wished to, had to go through a mountain pass 
#n the border. A friend of his was the warden of that pass. 
While staying with this warden, Laotzse wrote his book. The 
point I wish to call attention to is that it was written in a 
mountain pass, it was born in a pass. There is a connection 
between a cave, a mountain pass and the three rivers, called 



86 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

Tao and Teh and the King. Think it over and you will readily 
see it and yon will discover that mystery, and that mystery will 
be a key to the understanding of the book. The book is, as you 
readily can infer, I mean to say, more than a book and its mean- 
ing is not understood except by those who have heard the voices 
of the sea and of the mountain, voices I spoke of in my second 
lecture. Many can read the book and many have read it with- 
out any mystery. But I can assure you that only those get its 
full meaning who can listen to its sentences as they would listen 
and interpret the flow of water from out of a cave. I know I 
am mystifying some of you, but I dare not express myself any 
clearer. Moreover, your own discovery will be of far more value 
to you than anything I could say in plain language. 

I have said all this about caves and wells, because I argue 
for the digging up of that old well, I call the Tao-Teh-King, 
hoping that when I have got so far as to have led your thoughts 
to it as a well of old, I may be able to take the next step and 
put some life into that cave or well, and henceforth call it a 
Heart, a living source rather than a cave or an inorganic hollow. 
If I can get that conception of Heart accepted, I will be under- 
stood when I say that Tao-Teh-King flows with living water, 
which will quench all thirst and none shall thirst again after 
having tasted its waters. And I have used the language I have 
chosen because this so-called book is no book in the ordinary 
sense of a book. It is a living being. It is an avatar, a revela- 
tion and can only be fully comprehended if treated as coming 
from the heavenly cave, whence are born anew Heaven and 
Earth every moment. It was a great misfortune for Peter 
Schlemilch that he cast no shadow, but it is for the Tao-Teh- 
King a proof of its celestial origin that it casts no shadow. It 
is light itself and does not stand in derived light. I am not 
exaggerating. Your own experience will prove the truth of what 
I say ; but no intellectual research will do it. No flippant criti- 
cism ever won fair love, nor will the book reveal itself where 
conceit reigns. The silver thread that runs through it is spun 
out of love's heart. As the spider spins its web out of its own 
organism and lives in it, so is this stream of life, called Tao-Teh- 
King, flowing as a living soul into the real student. 

Birds gather twigs and leaves for their nests ; all material 
from the outside. The learned collect fragments from here or 
there, and putting these fragments together with bits of fancy 
steeped in midnight oil, they call the product philosophy. But 



CAVES AND WELLS 87 

bees and spiders do differently, and so do the sages. The honey 
the bee brings home has been rejuvenated by the bee and trans- 
formed from inorganic stuff. The web of the spider is its own 
body. The sage is not a collector. He is a spontaneous pro- 
ducer. 

As the book is of such a peculiar nature, it will not surprise 
you that I should say something about how to read in it — I say 
" in it," I do not say "read it." You never can do the latter. 
The first characteristic of the book is that it can be read like 
any other moral treatise and will yield splendid results. Its 
teachings treated as merely human sense must by all be con- 
sidered as high and noble as any ethics taught anywhere. More- 
over, from a purely literary point of view, there is not a single 
sensual blot in it on any page. It never falls below propriety, 
no matter what straight-jacked school may hold up the standard 
of what is proper and right. In other words, the book naturally 
and literally is a model catechism in public and private morals. 
Reading it as such requires no special attitude or devotion. But 
reading in it is different from reading it, and I confess I find it 
difficult to say just what I mean. But here are some leading 
thoughts. You have perhaps seen old devout people reading 
their Bible with folded hands before them and reading with 
prayer for enlightenment. If you have not seen or heard it in 
reality, perhaps you have seen paintings in which this was 
shown. To say the least, that custom of the folded hands and 
of prayer is very beautiful. Some also cross themselves, and 
that represents to them an act of faith. In India no Brahmin 
reads a text without intoning the Om, and no Mohammedan 
begins or ends a prayer without reciting his creed — "La-ilaha-il- 
lal-laho," and so forth: "There is no Diety but God," and so 
forth. Everywhere, where people have any degree of the Inner 
Life, and even where only ancient ceremonies remain, they utter 
themselves in words of praise, thanks or adoration. If they do 
that spontaneously, their ejaculations will stir them profoundly; 
all externals will vanish or recede, thus permitting the soul to 
unfold and the spirit to become free. In that unfoldment and 
that freedom there is absorption into the Divine, and the outcome 
is either high ecstacy or an illumination. It is told of an old 
woman, who was ordered by her father confessor to say seven 
pater nosters, that when she next time came before him and was 
asked if she had done as directed, she answered No! she had 
come no further than "Our Father" of the first prayer, and 



88 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

why? Because the intonation of that appellative had thrown 
her into ecstasy and absorbed all the rest of the prayer. 

If you can learn to say Ta-o with that fire, you will under- 
stand what I meant by calling the Tao-Teh-King an avatar. But 
if you cannot say Ta-o, say or act as your heart and imagination 
prompts you. Do or say something ! Again. All sentences and 
sometimes single words, no matter what the language may be, 
are merely hieroglyphics that represent an image that passed 
before the mind of the writer. It is that image we must get 
hold of when we read. If we do not get hold of it, we do not get 
from our reading that which we ought to get. To get that image, 
we must let the sentence read present itself before our inner 
eye. We do that best by meditation, not by prying into its 
meaning, possible or impossible. The sentence contains the 
Image, even if the sentence is poor linguistics. Sit still and 
meditate, that is my advice ! 

The power of single words is forcefully illustrated by a story 
told by Dr. Kober about Jacob Bohme. The two were walking 
in the fields, when the Doctor happened to use the Platonic word 
"Idea." No sooner had he pronounced it than Jacob Bohme, in 
ecstacy, exclaimed, "Ah! I see the heavenly Virgin!" Bohme 
had never heard the word before. The explanation was per- 
fectly rational and is easily explained, because "Idea" to Plato 
means a God. Bohme caught the Inner Life of the word. I my- 
self possess several such words. One of those words I got from 
the Tao-Teh-King, and I have prepared a chapter on it, which 
you will find as you continue to read; that word can throw me 
into an ecstatic condition, and I have found a couple of images 
that will unlock many mysteries of the Inner Life as well as the 
outer. There is nothing marvellous about this, and I do not 
consider myself better gifted than any of you. Some of you 
probably possess similar words and images, but have perhaps 
not brought them consciously into use. I have come into pos- 
session of these words and images by devotion and by perpetual 
meditation on them. 

Will you not do something of this kind? You need no 
teacher. The teacher, the sage, is within. All you need is Sim- 
plicity, Truth of life and the Mother. 



LAOTZSE 
VI. 

I WILL now give an account of Laotzse and his book. I will 
first tell the little that is known about him, personally, and 
then I will examine the character of the historic period in 

which he lived, and it shall be seen what a remarkable man 
he was. Finally I will give a summary of his book. He was of 
a good family, possibly of royal descent, and born 604 B. C. in 
Ku, a hamlet in Tsu in Honan. Very little is known about him, 
but we know that he was librarian or custodian of the archives 
of Cho, a city in south-western China. He was called by many 
names, such as "the old philosopher," because, according to 
tradition he was white haired like an old man, when he was born. 
Tradition also tells that he was 80 years old when born, having 
been all that time is his mother's womb. He is also called "the 
ancient prince," "the old child," which means "he who even as 
an old man remains child-like ; " he was also called ' i the greatly 
eminent ancient master." After his death, the title of Tan wab 
conferred upon him. Tan means "master" and is the same ay 
the title "Christ" given Jesus, and "Buddha" given to Sakya- 
Muni. As we now say "Jesus, the Christ," so Taoists say Lao- 
Tan : Lao, the master. Much has been fabled about his connec- 
tion with Babylonian and Chaldean history, but no historic au- 
thority exists for any of those speculations. 

I want here in the name of justice to all of the ancient 
prophets and teachers to protest against the modern scholars' 
theory of borrowing. It has become the custom among scholars 
to search for plagiarism everywhere among the ancients, deny- 
ing the old wisdom-teachers any originality. In this country 
among the half studied it is common to hear that all teachings 
are derived from India. It is about as intelligent as to say that 
our civilization is derived from the Hottentots or from some 
African negro. The natural question, therefore, is : where did 



90 THE INNEB LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

all this wisdom which it is claimed was stolen from somebody 
else — where did it originate? Who originated it? Onr wise- 
acres never ask themselves this question! The truth about the 
ancient wisdom, as about wisdom today, is this : the human mind 
and heart are everywhere and always were capable of originat- 
ing it for themselves without teaching or impulse from another. 
All ancient wisdom has originated spontaneously, and that is 
the explanation of its origin. 

If you, my reader, would live truly and not lose yourself in 
all kinds of distractions, you could equal or transcend Laotzse, 
Buddha, and all the great teachers, and you could do that with- 
out any teacher. All you need to do is " to be as you are, ' ' like 
those most ancient Chinese the Tao-Teh-King speaks of, said: 
"We are what we are," and who did not know who ruled them 
nor cared. Yes, that is all that is needed ! 

That Laotzse was a genuine theosophic mystic and not a 
copyist appears from his book, the Tao-Teh-King. In the 20th 
chapter he makes the following confession, the only known per- 
sonal statement we have: "The multitude of men are happy, 
so happy, as though they were celebrating a great feast. They 
behave as though it were springtime and they were ascending 
a high tower. I alone remain quiet, alas ! like one who expects 
nothing of the future. I am like a baby who cannot yet smile. 
Forlorn I am; oh so forlorn! It appears that I have no place 
where I may find a home. The multitude of men all have plenty 
and I alone am empty. Alas! I must be foolish? Ignorant I 
am; oh so ignorant! Common people are bright, so bright. I 
alone am dull. Common people are smart; oh, so smart. I 
alone am confused; oh so confused! Desolate I am, alas! like 
the sea. Adrift, alas ! one who has no place where to stay. The 
multitude of men all possess usefulness. I alone am awkward, 
and a rustic, too. I alone differ from others; but I reverence 
the Mother. ' ' This is the description of a man on the Path and 
also his groans, but there is no bitterness in them. It is the 
lamentation of a man who has moments when he is very un- 
happy because he feels the world's indifference to its own wel- 
fare and feels his solitary position and longs for a company he 
cannot find. As a sage, he is homeless and feels it when others 
rejoice around him. By the way, this condition of homeless- 
ness, this being a man without a country and a home, is one that 
comes with various degrees of force to all who are on the Path ; 
f ou may hear them moan, but you never hear a cry of bitterness. 



LAOTZE 91 

or anger, or regret. Do not consider such lamentations to be 
signs of weakness. It cannot be avoided; it must be endured 
and the rewards are sure. The time will come when we no more 
crave for sympathy. You have read about this in "The Voice 
of the Silence." Cheer up fellow sufferer. Paul was a 
fool for Christ's sake. Laotzse was a fool for the sake of Tao! 
And his lamentations are exclamations in moments of loneliness, 
moments that even the wisest and the most self -centered people 
have. At the same time, as they are cries of suffering they are 
also witnesses to his greatness. No mean man, no mere hypo- 
crite would or could so frankly characterize himself that way. 

Laotzse 's Theosophy centers around the two words Tao 
and Teh and his book is called Tao-Teh-King, which means, the 
Book about Tao and Teh. What these two words mean, I shall, 
in this and in subsequent chapters explain, and you shall find, I 
trust, an incentive in them to dive deeper into the mysteries 
which they reveal. 

Personally, Laotzse is the center of his book and also the 
beginning of a radically new development of the human mind 
and heart. It is not easy nor necessary now at the beginning of 
the study to define fully what the mental and moral state of 
China was just before Laotzse. You will see that easier when 
you shall have become familiar with the book itself. I will 
therefore omit such definition and description for the present. 
But it is possible to indicate what the historic appearance of 
Laotzse means by comparing him and his appearance to some 
contemporary and later movements in history. I will try to do 
that. 

Laotzse was born 604 B. C, or at the time when Eome was 
just built and in early childhood, and not yet of any universal 
value or significance. Nearly two hundred years later than 
Laotzse, Greece began in her way to talk about the same prob- 
lems which Laotzse already so long before had fully stated, and 
moreover introduced into life, in a most vigorous way and by 
great disciples. By comparing him and his work with Greece 
and Eome in point of time you see how the new cycle, which he 
and they represent, begins with him as a sunrise and ends with 
them as a sunset. 

And here are some other facts to prove the same point. As 
Laotzse is chief among Turanian people, so is, at this time, 
Babylonia chief among the Semitic people, and typified by Ne- 
buchadnezzar. At this time he had subjugated Judea, destroyed 



92 THE INNEB LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

Jerusalem and awed Egypt. Nineveh was razed to the ground 
the year before Laotzse was born and three years later Daniel 
was ennobled for his interpretation of dreams. Ezekiel saw 
allegorical visions. In India, a little later, Sakya-Muni, the 
Buddha, began to preach the true doctrine of freedom and right 
knowledge. 

In other words, on a limited space on the face of the earth, 
reaching a few degrees north and south and stretching from the 
western part of China towards the Mediterranean sea, a pecu- 
liar awakening and revelation took place. The space may be in- 
scribed in a geometrical figure of a parallelogram of a few de- 
grees north to south and a few more east to west. (See Dia- 
gram.) One might imagine a great temple erected upon that 
parallelogram with its entrance in the east, represented by 
Laotzse, and its altar in the west, represented by the New Age, 
which is upon us. Its southern wall would be represented by 
Buddha and the Gita and the northern by Jesus. Such a design 
and idea is not so fanciful as some might think. It is a fact 
that Laotzse, the Gita, Buddha and Jesus, and let me add to 
them the New Age: these four represent the essentials of the 
Great Cycle we live in. Their ideas, their historical sequence 
and the power they have exerted, all confirm the conception. 
Historically, it is easy to verify what I say, namely, that there 
is not a single wisdom idea to be found among us which was 
not born then ; nor is there a single religious idea, that we today 
characterize as of eternal value, which was not born within that 
parallelogram I have drawn. We of today are simply the in- 
heritors! — and what have we done with our patrimony! Have 
we invested it to get its full power in current value? I think 
not! I believe there is much in the teachings and life of those 
four, Laotzse, the Gita, Buddha and Jesus, that we have not 
yet discovered. I hope the New Age will discover it. 

The parallelogram, I have drawn, and the ideas I connect 
with it, point to the ideas mentioned in a former chapter on 
templum. I believe the templum of our cycle stands in the 
heavens above that earthly space. Do you understand me? I 
think it worth while for you to study these suggestions ; they are 
not only occult, but they are historical, too, and everyone of you 
is historically affected by these sages and the movements that 
sprang from them. Everywhere else outside that parallelogram 
on the face of the earth, where man lived, he existed upon rem- 
nants of other civilizations, if civilizations they can be called; 




93 



94 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

civilizations radically defective, when compared to the new forms 
that came in. Such historic facts must not be overlooked or 
thought of as of no or little value. On the contrary, they are 
of the greatest value. 

Some one will now ask about the value and significance of 
India and all its marvelous religions, thinking perhaps that I 
misjudge India's position. They will want to know how these 
are related to Laotzse, to Greece, and to the mighty Semitic 
force of the days I speak about. I can answer those questions 
easily. India and all its religions and customs lie on an anterior 
plane of development. India, or Brahminism, was not human 
as the human is represented by Laotzse; it is and was godly; 
man is and was of no significance ; the gods are and were all and 
everything. But with the other peoples, man is born as Man 
and his significance in the world economy is established. That 
is the difference. Brahminism knows of no sage who is active in 
the world and desirous of raising the world. Buddha and the 
Gita are the ones who first see and establish the basis for free- 
dom. Brahminism knows of no such struggle as that which 
took place among the Semites, the object of which was the estab- 
lishment of a Kingdom of God, the One, among men. Brahmin- 
ism was priest-craft, and fought for its own glory and the glory 
of its gods. Brahminism knows of no such mental boldness and 
revolutionary ideas as those which lie in the Socratic dictum: 
6 ' Man is the measure of all things. ' ' 

It is easy then to see the radical difference between Laotzse, 
the Semites and Buddha on one side and Brahminism on the 
other; and, it must be acknowledged that the progressive ideas 
are with the former. As for the Bhagavad-Gita, it is not a brah- 
minical product in the sense, I have given Brahminism. Its 
ideas belong to the very period I am defining and for which I 
claim so much. An historic and a comparative study will show 
that. 

As for other factors, which I have not counted in, I may 
anticipate questions about Zoroaster and the Fire worshipers, 
which plainly lie within the territory I mention. My answer is 
simply this : I point to the fact that they have vanished. Ex- 
cellent and wonderful teachers they were, but the eternal, the 
upbuilding element, was not in their doctrine. Zoroastrian doc- 
trine was mainly an ethical philosophical doctrine of the per- 
petual fight of good and evil, a dualism that contains no redemp- 
tion, like that offered by Laotzse, Buddha, the Gita and Jesus. 



WISDOM AND VIETUE 95 

As for the Hebrews, they are the progenitors of Jesus, the 
last prophet and Master-Mystic. For the rest, their glory lies 
with all the other Semites, by whatever name they be mentioned, 
all of which were the standard bearers of belief in the One. At 
the time of Laotzse they were sadly degenerate, bnt had aready 
established the work they had to do. I do not think there are 
any other interrogations that I need anticipate and answer. 

You are now acquainted with something about the character 
of the time in which Laotzse appears and you can see the mo- 
mentous importance of his appearance. It was, as I called it, a 
revelation, a beginning of a new historic cycle, and, I repeat 
what I said before, we are still in it. 

I shall now make some comparisons between Laotzse, the 
Gita, Buddha and Jesus and their systems of religion, not as 
they exist in the world today, but the religions such as these 
masters taught it and instructed their disciples in it. 

Laotzse 's system is summarized best as a system or doctrine 
of Wisdom and Virtue. That definition will be and is accepted 
by all students of the book, the Tao-Teh-King. Buddha's one 
object was to emancipate mankind from sin, sorrow and death, 
and to teach the doctrine of right knowledge and right living. 
Jesus boldly bid his disciples: "Follow me and love one an- 
pther." He was the first and so far the only founder of a re- 
ligion whose doctrine was personal. Another comparison. 
Laotzse was not missionary in any sense, but rather the formu- 
lator and teacher for others, who became propagandists. The 
Gita is clearly a Krishna-Logos doctrine and the law of Union 
of self with Self by the fulfilling of one's duty. The Gita is full 
of intense activity, even war. It is a gospel for struggling man. 
It is a character builder, not a book for home-reading. Buddha 
was missionary in so far as he preached the doctrine; but he 
was not an organizer. His followers organized the brother- 
hoods, not he. Jesus was both a preacher and an organizer of 
brotherhoods and made His own person the center. 

Now, if I leave out of consideration the personalities of the 
three sages, Laotzse, Buddha and Jesus and also the historic 
systems that have sprung from them, and have regard to the 
character of their teachings only, then the result is, that there is 
a gradual development from the universal in Laotzse to the 
Individual and Personal in Jesus. And such development means 
psychologically that we begin by learning and end by becoming 



96 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

realizations of that which we originally learned. And that too 
is the sum total of the Gita. 

If I now take the final step and seek a comparison between 
these four and the fifth degree — I mentioned before and called 
the New Age — what then is the result? It is this, that these 
four are found to be preparatory to a final transcending condi- 
tion in which we may be lifted in to a higher wisdom, and an 
interior union: into God- Wisdom or Theo-Sophia. They are 
our saviors from the lower to the higher. 

Summarizing what I have said, the result is a clear view of 
the essential steps upon the Path, (1) Instruction in Being, "Wis- 
dom and Virtue; this degree is represented by Laotzse; (2) a 
vigorous attempt upon the attainment of freedom ; this degree is 
represented by Buddha; (3) a personal realization of freedom; 
this degree is represented by the Gita and Jesus ; (4) an identi- 
fication of the traveller with the Path and his transcending into 
God- Wisdom or Theosophy; this degree is represented by the 
New Age. 

I have claimed for Laotzse what a follower of Confucius will 
deny. I have claimed first place for him in China because he is 
the one who carries over into the New Age that begins with him, 
the contents, the inner value, the kernel of all the wisdom the 
previous ages had acquired, and, he is also the one who com- 
municates to the New Age of China that begins with him, the 
virtue, or, the right principles of conduct, which the previous 
ages had discovered. Confucius did no more than formulate 
ancient ceremonies, the most external of all forms of life. 
Moreover, this ceremonialism has been the bane of China. 

In view of these facts, I have a right to claim that Laotzse 
is the regenerator and the true transition from the prehistoric 
times to the historic in China. 

There may have been Taoism before Laotzse, that is to say, 
similar ideas may have existed, and, no doubt they did, but that 
does not warrant anyone in saying, that Laotzse stole them. 
Such ideas as those of Tao and Teh always exist ; they are part 
of the constitution of the universe. They have been discovered 
time and again, but each time revealed in a different way suit- 
able to the age that discovered them. Laotzse discovered them 
for his age and the subsequent times and interpreted them for 
the Chinese, and, for us in a new and fresh form. You may dis- 
cover them and interpret them anew. Thousands of years hence 
somebody else will again discover them and interpret them. 



TAOISM 97 

All these discoverers are benefactors, and original, not plagiar- 
ists. In a similar way, the eternal ideas of Buddha's preaching, 
those of the Gita and those of Jesus existed, before they ap- 
peared in that form which Buddha, Vyassa or Jesus gave them. 
These prophets and teachers discovered them for their ages and 
for us. They are couched in forms that still harmonize with 
the constitution of our minds. 

A word or two about Taoism after Laotzse. Taoism as a 
system and in relation to Laotzse, is much like Christianity in its 
relation to Jesus : in both cases is the founder ignored, his teach- 
ings shamefully perverted and a priestly system substituted for 
the founder's benevolent and sublime ideas. Taoism has tem- 
ples and a pope. It is full of spiritism, superstitions and pre- 
tenses. It is a mixture of alchemy, polytheism and yoga prac- 
tices. It is degeneration and disgrace. But there are Taoists 
outside these forms, just as there are a few friends of Jesus out- 
side the Churches. 

There are many translations extant of the Tao-Teh-King. 
They differ widely both as to sense and value. The cause of all 
the different renderings of various passages is easily seen. The 
translators pursuing their scholastic methods and applying the 
grammatical rules of Indo-European languages could never hit 
upon the right symbolical meaning of the Chinese characters, 
which are symbols of ideas and not verbal representations of 
words. Unless the Chinese characters are interpreted, both as 
to sound and to ideographic form, they never can be rightly 
understood. I will give you a couple of illustrations. A Jap- 
anese, now studying at Columbia University, has told me that 
false intonation caused a missionary to say to his pupils: "Go 
to hell, ' ' when he wanted to say : ' ' Go home. ' ' Another mission- 
ary attempted to teach his pupils the Lord's Prayer and made a 
fatal mistake in the very beginning of that prayer. He wanted 
to say "Our Father," but he did say "Fat pig." In the texts 
I shall use, I have avoided the scholastic and distorted transla- 
tions, where the ideographic interpretation was the obvious one. 
Hence I claim that I have been able to detect many a mystic 
sense, and, been able to harmonize many expressions, thereby 
gaining an insight into the Tao-Teh-King hitherto unknown. I 
have been engaged with the Tao-Teh-King since 1877, or for 32 
years, and my interest in the book is ever increasing. I place it 
very high among the treasures that have come to us from the 
East. 



98 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

The book is not only full of mystic lore, but also thoroughly 
practical. In fact, it is a hand book in the ' ' Conduct of Life. ' 9 
It is a life book, not dry philosophy or metaphysics remote from 
the problems of life. If a man had no other guide for his spir- 
itual conduct, he would not be the loser, on the contrary, his 
struggles for light on the Path would be easy, because the book 
is simplicity itself. 

In regard to the many disputes about translation of certain 
terms and all the fuss those translators have made, I will quote a 
recent translator and commentator (C. Spurgeon Medhust) who 
makes the following note appropriately to chapter 2 : " A lotus 
pond will serve as an illustration of the difference between the 
holy sages and the younger members of the race. Covered 
with broad green leaves and brilliant blooms, it irresistibly at- 
tracts child-souls. They wade into the water, sink in the slime, 
and desperately struggle for the fragile petals; but the sages, 
their elder brethren, remain quietly on the bank, always alert to 
aid any who requires assistance, content to admire, content to 
enjoy without desiring to possess ; yet actually owning the flow- 
ers more truly than the struggling crowd in the slimy pond. We 
are feeblest when we are grasping." The child-souls are the 
noisy and ignorant translators who "know all about it," yet 
never even know the A B C of the Inner Life. 

Let me for a moment drop the thread of my subject and ask 
you to notice these words of the quotation just read : ' ' The sage 
ie content to enjoy, without desiring to possess." What sorrow 
we do bring upon ourselves when we rudely rush in, into "the 
garden of the gods" to pluck flowers, which we vainly think we 
own, because we have torn them off. In how many ways is that 
done? Hereafter try to enjoy beauty without possessing it ! 

I shall now attempt to give you a summary of the doctrines 
of the book, but I shall leave the word Tao untranslated for the 
present, because the word means so much and I shall devote 
several chapters to it. But that some image may stand now 
before your mind, I will say that the word means both Nature, 
Logos, the Word and Beason, and also the Way, the Truth and 
the Life ; it may also be translated both Deity and God. Keep 
these meanings in mind and you may profit by the following, 
which is a general summary of the Tao-Teh-King, leaving the 
word Tao untranslated. 

Tao existed as a perfect, but incomprehensible Being, be- 
fore heaven and earth were; is immaterial and immeasurable, 



TAO 99 

invisible and inaudible; is mysterious, yet manifest, without 
shape or form; is supersensuous and hidden from our eyes; is 
incapable of being named or denned; and the book says, "One 
needs not to peep through his window to see Tao, Tao is not 
there. The farther one goes away from himself the less he 
knows." Tao is in ourselves first of all. This then is Tao as 
unmanifested. But Tao is also manifested. Hear: "Tao is 
the external foundation of all things ; is the universal progenitor 
of all beings and only capable of being named by means of the 
works. But he who would gain a knoweldge of Tao's nature 
and attributes must first set himself free from all earthly de- 
sires. Unless he can do that, he shall not be able to penetrate 
the material veil which interposes between him and Tao. Tao 
is only revealed to those who are free from desires. He who 
regulates his actions by Tao will become one with Tao. Tao is 
the source from which all things come into existence — and to 
which all things return — and Tao is the means through whom 
this takes place. Tao being eternal and absolutely free, has no 
wants or desires, is eternally at rest but never idle, does not 
grow old, is omnipresent, immutable and self-determined, loves 
all things and does not act as a ruler. Because Tao creates, pre- 
serves, nourishes and protects all things, Tao is glorified for this 
beneficence and held in high honor. ' ' You notice that all this is 
about Being and Not-Being; the profoundest subject we can dis- 
cuss. Tao is both the beyond and also the present. Again, Tao 
is the foundation of the highest morality. Tao alone bestows 
and makes perfect, gives peace and is the universal refuge, the 
good man's treasure, the bad man's deliverer and the pardoner 
of guilt. Here again, is Tao in a new aspect; in the aspect of 
the moral power in the world, or as the judge and savior. 

Is not all this glorious f Do you wonder that my interest in 
the book is ever increasing. Surely you will wish to hear more 
about this book and its messages on Teh or Virtue. Teh, or 
conduct, or virtue, is the exemplification of Tao, the realization 
of Tao, Tao brought into life. 

I will now supplement this description, which is put together 
from accurately translated sentences from the Tao-Teh-King, 
by another general description of Tao drawn from Laotzse's 
famous disciple Kwang-zse. It is in the form of an instruction 
given by a teacher. It is a most practical instruction and Tao is 
defined in relation to immortality and the endless life. I shall 
say something about it after having read the instructions. 



100 THE INNEB LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

"Come and I will tell you about the perfect Tao. Its essence is 
surrounded with the deepest obscurity; its highest reach is in 
darkness and silence. There is nothing to be seen, nothing to be 
heard. When it holds the spirit in its arms in stillness, then 
the bodily form will of itself become correct. You must be still, 
you must be pure ; not subjecting your body to toil ; not agitating 
your vital forces, then you may live long. When your eyes see 
nothing, your ears hear nothing, and your mind knows nothing, 
your spirit will keep your body, and the body will live long. 
Watch over that which is within you, shut up the avenues that 
connect you with that which is external ; much knowledge is per- 
nicious. I will proceed with you to the summit of the ' Great 
Light' where we come to the bright and expanding (element) ; 
I will enter with you the gate of the dark and depressing ele- 
ment. There heaven and earth have their controllers ; there the 
Yin and Yang have their repositories. Watch over and keep 
your body, and all things will of themselves give it vigor. I 
maintain the (original) unity (of these elements). In this way 
I have cultivated myself for 1,200 years and my bodily form 
knows no decay.' ' [The translation is Legge's in " Sacred 
Books of the East."] 

Evidently Tao is here transcribed as immortality and the 
endless life, but you must not forget that this is not from the 
Tao-Teh-King, but a product of Taozseism or the schools that 
founded their teachings upon the Tao-Teh-King. However, the 
Taozeists deducted this teaching of longevity from the master's 
book, hence it may well be considered to be in it. Now, I will 
attempt to explain some points of this "instruction," which may 
have been clear to the Chinese pupil of that day, but certainly is 
not to us of today. 

In the first place, the teacher takes the pupil to ' ' the deepest 
obscurity," to "darkness and silence." That means he takes 
the disciple beyond himself, beyond the world of time and space, 
and, that "beyond" is always described for obvious reasons in 
negative terms, such as the "deepest obscurity," "darkness and 
silence." And literally, of course, there is nothing to be seen 
nor heard, because the state is beyond the senses, such senses 
as those which make seeing and hearing. Coming into that high 
state, ' i the spirit lies in the arms of stillness ; ' ' a poetic expres- 
sion for the fact, that the spirit now is there where there is 
stillness, because no motion or change of any kind takes place 
nor can take place, simply because it is the immovable world, the 



TEH 101 

primal world, the world that is perfect rest in itself, but from 
which all motion proceeds. In former chapters I have defined 
this world and its conditions in detail. 

After stating this, the teacher admonishes the pupil to be 
still and pure ; that is an important injunction. He who is still 
is the powerful one ; and he only because, in stillness the inherent 
power is not fretted away; we are self-controlled and that is 
power. The pupil is also admonished to be pure, that is, he is to 
be sincere or simple. The meaning of simplicity I developed 
in the fourth and fifth chapters of this course. If the pupil is 
pure, or, which is the same, single minded, he is, as a matter of 
course, in stillness. Stillness is not possible without purity, 
and, on the other hand, stillness produces purity. No man is 
strong unless he is pure, and no one can be pure without being 
strong. The two qualities condition one another. 

Next, the teacher says to his disciple under those conditions 
just described, "your spirit will keep your body" and "the body 
will live long. ' ' In other words, the teacher has shown the pupil 
how to manage to live long. Is that an object in itself : to live 
long? Nay, certainly not! The only justifiable reason for liv- 
ing long is to be of use to ourselves and to others. For no other 
reason should we wish to live long. 

"What do I mean by being of use to ourselves ? I mean, that 
we should wish to live long in order to recover all the results we 
have attained in former lives ; results which now lie more or less 
dormant in most people. Unless those results are recovered by 
an awakening, our present incarnation goes for nought or may 
even be a hindrance to us. By being of use to ourselves I mean 
then: (1) That we awaken. (2) That we recover our buried 
treasures of spiritual life. (3) That we proceed further on the 
Path. As a matter of course, we cannot proceed unless we have 
something to travel on, and that which we travel on is our past. 
The teacher speaks of this last point, when he says to the dis- 
ciple: "I will proceed with you to the summit of the * Great 
Light.' " 

And, finally, the teacher repeats his injunction, "Watch 
over and keep your body, and all things will of themselves give 
it vigor. ' ' I need not now stop to speak on this final admonition. 
In the third chapter, I spoke extensively on a rational treatment 
of the senses, "the flesh,' ' so called. All that which I then said 
openly or more or less veiled relates to this subject now brought 
up. 



102 THE INNEK LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

We will now return to the subject in hand and will let 
Laotzse himself speak. The master himself has said something 
equally as startling and, of course, something that is utterly in- 
comprehensible to people who are ignorant of the occult powers 
which Tao gives. Laotzse in the 50th chapter writes: "I have 
heard it said that a man who is good at taking care of his life 
may travel over the country without meeting a rhinoceros or a 
tiger, and may enter an armed host without fearing their steel. 
The rhinoceros finds in him no place to insert his horn ; the tiger 
finds no place to fix his claw ; the weapon finds no place to receive 
its blade. And why is this? It is because he is beyond the 
reach of death.' ' 

I have no time to tell you all the silly things that have been 
said by the ignorant about this. You yourself will understand 
that the pure and good are always protected, and, that one be- 
comes immortal when all desires are killed. Normally the sage 
escapes the wild animal because he is in truth and they are not ; 
their ferocity and thirst for blood is not truth. And because the 
sage is good, or partakes of God, the evil cannot touch him ; evil 
has no real power. It is as Kwang-zse said: "The sage is a 
spiritual being. If the ocean were boiling he would not feel hot. 
If all the rivers were frozen hard, he would not feel cold. ' ' 

The mystery is further explained by Su Cheh who says: 
"Nature knows neither life nor death. Its going forth we call life, 
and its coming in we call death.' ' The sage belongs neither to 
those who pursue the path of life, nor to those who pursue the 
path of death, he is beyond life and death and therefore invul- 
nerable ; cannot be touched by death. 

All this was about Tao. I shall not say anything about Teh. 
I have already summarized Teh in two former chapters in which 
I described it as "Simplicity" and the "Sage." I shall, how- 
ever, come back to it as we proceed. 

I will tell you in the words of Goethe what to do with this 

book ' "Once through the forest 

Alone I went ; 
To seek for nothing 
My thoughts were bent. 

I saw i' the shadow 

A flower stand there ; 
As stars it glisten 'd, 

As eyes 'twas fair. 



THE STUDY OF TAO 103 

I sought to pluck it, — 

It gently said : 
"Shall I be gather 'd 
Only to fade?'' 

With all its roots 

I dug it with care, 
And took it home 

To my garden fair. 

In silent corner 

Soon it was set; 
There grows it ever, 
There blooms it yet. ' ' 

This is what you shall do. Take it home and plant it again, 
it will then flower forever. To pluck it off as an ornament about 
which you may prate and pride yourself is only killing it. Only 
too many treat the books, the ancients left us, that way. They 
are to them merely like flowers in the buttonhole. In the second 
chapter I spoke of a young student who wished to add one more 
item to her study and chose the Inner Life to be that study, and, 
while she was looking out of the window, her teacher vanished. 
I want you to take warning from that story, too. Merely to 
study the Tao-Teh-King as one of several other studies will not 
be any more either than a flower in the buttonhole that soon 
fades. Nay, you must transplant this book into your own home, 
into your heart, root and all, and, to do that you must go out into 
the Open to learn how nature works. This book is not merely a 
book as thousand others. It looks like a book. We call it a 
book from its appearance just as we call flowers flowers, because 
we have become accustomed to do so. We have lost their lan- 
guage and can no more speak to them or hold conversations with 
them about the warmth they feel at their roots, or answer the 
whisperings of their leaves to the winds of morning and even- 
ing, when mother earth changes her garments from light to dark, 
or, when she says her morning prayers to the Sun. And that is 
why we call them flowers and think we have said all that can be 
said to characterize them. Our fairyland is lost. Most people 
have lost what they never really possessed and yet their better 
self followed them always and called. To avoid this catastrophe 
I advise a study and a life according to this book out of doors, 
that is, under the guidance of nature. 



104 THE INNEK LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

The book is a series of nature notes ; it is nature mysticism. 
It is a song that comes from nature's heart and not from any 
university. It is nature, or spirit made visible. You may also 
turn the sentence round, and say that the book is spirit showing 
us invisible nature. Both sentences are true and the study may 
be begun either by starting in spirit and ending in nature or 
starting in nature and ending in spirit. If you understand the 
last chapter on "Simplicity and the Sage," you will do as I have 
done and still do. I study this so called book in the Open. It 
is only in the open that we see spirit and nature to be One. 

Some future day, when you and I shall see a new heaven 
and a new earth, we will be playing the sentences of this book 
on instruments, and its accords will bring us in harmony with 
the root of existence. I am not saying this merely to utter some 
extravagant thought. I have had some experience with Chinese 
thought that warrants my expressions. I shall speak more of 
this in future chapters. Take the book home ! 



LONGEVITY 
VII. 

IN the last chapter, I quoted a learned Taoist on Tao as 
Longevity, and I tried to explain the master's instructions 
to the pupil — all, except one sentence, which I left for this 

chapter. 

That sentence was: "When it (Tao) holds the Spirit in its 
arms in Stillness, then the bodily form will of itself become 
correct. ' ' I will now try to elucidate what ' ' Stillness "is. What 
I call my " elucidation' ' will appear to you as a roundabout talk 
and not as a direct elucidation. It cannot be anything else 
because the subject is transcendental. I think, however, it will 
be an elucidation and I hope so. 

In the six preceding chapters I have again and again quoted 
mystic authors about the necessity of overcoming desires, lusts, 
passions, or whatever all those wild and blind forces of Nature 
be called, which are in the way of our development in the spirit- 
ual life and which only too often destroy us. It is now higB 
time that I speak of other disturbing elements, elements far 
more dangerous than Nature's wild play with us. These other 
disturbing elements, I shall now speak of, have their very roots 
in our Ego, in our own will. Lusts and passions are merely 
parts of our make up and are not fundamental ; they are mere 
forms of our objective existence; they are only external to us; 
they are residents of the flesh, and merely visitors on the soul's 
domain. 

I shall now lay special stress upon the conflict in aim and 
end there is between mind and inclinations, between our spiritual 
will and our physical will, the two wills of St. Paul, with which 
most of you are familiar. In short, I shall lay stress upon a 
fact well known to those who are on the Path, or the Narrow 
Way, so called, namely this, that volitionally we are in conflict 
with ourselves ; or theologically speaking we are in sin. I shall 



106 THE INNEE LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

also try to point out how this conflict arises and can be brought 
to an end, or, how we, to use theological language, can be saved. 
This subject is of uttermost importance, whatever creed one 
may hold. It is a fundamental question for us all. 

Let me tell you now, right here at the outset, that this inner 
conflict I shall speak of and will illustrate in various ways, this 
inner conflict was unknown to all those peoples who lie outside 
that parallelogram I described in the last chapter. The conflict 
arises or comes into history at the moment the new cycle is 
ushered in, and it governs the whole period of this our cycle. 
By and by in other chapters you shall hear Laotzse describe 
the "paradisaical" conditions, if I may so call them, that pre- 
vailed in what he calls "the ancient days," or in the previous 
cycle ; an absolute proof that these conflicts we now know, and 
which mankind has known since his day, did not exist before 
his time. 

The vedic writings do not know this conflict as we know it. 
Perhaps there is a glimmer of it with Zoroaster. But Buddha 
was fully aware of the conflict and preached it. The Gita also 
knows about it. Jesus preached it, and some of the Christians 
have talked themselves deaf, dumb and blind about it, yet they 
never understood it fully. It was only very late that the Greeks 
discovered the problem. Homer knew what "folly" was, but 
not what "sin" was. Aeschylos and Sophocles knew something 
about "penalties," so called, or, the karma that follows upon 
disobedience to our Higher Self, but could not formulate the 
principle. Not even Plato came to the bottom of the problem. 
In spite of all the talk for nearly two thousand years in Christen- 
dom about sin and salvation, I do not think it has yet been un- 
derstood how it is that we sin, nor how we may be saved. That 
a devil is the cause of our sin is folklore and no more. Children 
may believe it, but not mature minds. 

I shall not pretend to know the final solution, but I have 
lived with the problem before me since a time when many of you 
were not yet born, or, at any rate, were too young to have dis- 
covered it. And I have had some experiences that may be of 
use to others. Those experiences, in the form of tales and 
poems, I shall present to you, in part, in this chapter, and in part 
in the next. Now, then, to the subject. 

That which I now say will answer to the experience of most 
people — in some degree. The strongest and most individual 
people know more about it than the weak and those that pass 



SELF-ASSERTION 107 

through life like sleepwalkers. Those that know nothing of 
these things are either children, saints or beasts. There was a 
time when yon began to assert yourself, began to have your own 
will, as you called it; and there was a time when you said or 
thought that you knew the truth of life better than your parents, 
friends, or teachers. In those states you involuntarily (or vol- 
untarily) broke in such a way with your antecedents and your 
betters, that the break perhaps never has healed. An antagon- 
ism entered into your existence, which has left a permanent dis- 
turbance, a disturbance which must be distressing to a normal 
mind. Such splits, breaks or diremptions may in some be so 
deep that a permanent pain remains ever afterwards, and they 
may be deadly. You will naturally ask many questions relating 
to and about these breaks, such as about their origin, their 
psychological nature. I will try to meet some of these questions. 
The others must wait till their turn comes. At present I limit 
myself to a most characteristic feature of that cycle which 
begins with the time of Laotzse and his immediate disciples, 
and I say that the characteristic feature is this, that the prin- 
ciples of form, law, order, truth, are revealed or laid bare, and 
are discovered and realized by man. Of course, there was form, 
law, order, truth in Nature before this time, but the human 
mind was not so constituted reflectively that it could grasp or 
formulate these principles. 

I take it for granted that these terms, form, law, order, 
truth, are understood. If I am mistaken, let me state how I 
use them. I say they are various aspects of the same idea, 
and that they express the manner of appearance of substance, 
or, that Something which underlies the phenomenon. Take an 
illustration. Here is a silver trumpet. In its case, the silver 
is substance and the appearance of the silver in this case is the 
form (not the shape) of the instrument we call trumpet. It 
is not important as regards the form, or the trumpet itself, 
whether the substance be silver, gold, copper or brass. Trum- 
pets are made of any of these metals, but it is most essential 
that the form in which the metal is cast or hammered, is after 
a certain fashion and for a certain use, because the fashion and 
use determine whether it is a trumpet or another instrument. 
In other words, the form becomes the essential and the sub- 
stance is not the essential. Again, this form, called a trumpet, 
must be in a certain shape in order to be a trumpet and not a 



108 THE INNEE LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

clarinet, for instance. Bnt that is another matter; I only say 
this to call attention to the difference between form and shape. 

Take another illustration. Yon and I are all in the form 
of man and that is onr determining quality. We are made of 
substances physically not different from the substances in ani- 
mals. Hence you see, as regards ourselves, as it was with the 
trumpet, the form is the essential. That we differ among our- 
selves as to shape is another matter. 

From this it will appear that form is the manner of ap- 
pearance. And I want to add that we in philosophy often ignore 
substance, and only value form, and that confusion therefore 
often arises. That is my use of form. I might also use the 
words law, order, truth, for the same purpose, only in varying 
aspects of the same subject. 

With this note, I return to my subject, and when I now 
say, as I shall say, that the principles of form, law, order, truth, 
first appear in the cycle that begins in the time of Laotzse, you 
will understand that mankind at that period for the first time 
discovered what form, law, order, truth are cosmically and 
psychologically, and in contradistinction to substance and posi- 
tive laws laid down for the conduct of life ; two conceptions which 
did not give us that power, which you shall hear me say follows, 
the discovery of the principles mentioned. 

Now, then, to my exposition. These principles arose in 
man's mind about five hundred years (or a little more) before 
Christ, and were fully established as ruling powers about five 
hundred years after Christ. It took mankind about a thousand 
years to add that intelligent element to its mentality. I said 
these principles arose. They did not arise as a growth simply, 
their appearance is so sudden and unconnected with the fore- 
gone state, that their appearance looks more like a gift, a divine 
gift. I usually call them a gift. For proof, you need only look 
into the literature that is left and to examine the extant monu- 
ments from the previous cycle. It would indeed be most in- 
structive and interesting if I now pointed out to you the nature 
of those literatures and monuments, but I cannot enter upon 
such archaeological details. My present object is not archaeo- 
logical or historical, but moral and practical. Both among 
Semites and Aryans you hear of law books, but they are not of 
the nature I speak of; they are not of cosmic character, nor 
psychological. They are formulas for the conduct of life, 
sociological edicts, but not thought-forms, as I will call them 



THOUGHT-FOEMS 109 

for the present, not revelations of what we call philosophy and 
art, but ought to call Theosophy or God-wisdom, because these 
thought-forms are revelations of the constitution of the cosmos. 
I call them thought-forms for the present, as a most suitable 
term, but you must understand that these thought-forms stretch 
in variety from Laotzse's Tao to St. Paul's " gifts of the spirit' ' 
denned and described in Corinthians, Chap. 12. The term is 
therefore very elastic and contains much more than merely 
1 ' thinking. ' ' These thought-forms are declarations, that, be- 
sides will, there is in Nature and in Man another power just as 
mighty as will, and because this other power is intelligent, seeing, 
and not dumb or blind, so much more superior to will. These 
thought-forms given to or revealed to man gave man from that 
moment a tremendous influence in cosmic affairs. In virtue of 
this peculiar light, man, who before was un-free, now could say 
"I" to himself as never before and was able to throw the force 
of this will against the course of events and thus mould them 
to suit himself. Before this event man was neither conscious 
of himself nor conscious of what he could do with himself or 
for himself. After that revelation man could and can now say 
as Pascal has formed the expression and done it so well : ' ' Man 
is but a reed, weakest in Nature, but a reed which thinks. Were 
the universe to crush him, man would still be more noble than 
that which has slain him, because he knows that he dies. The 
universe knows nothing of this. ' ' 

I feel tempted to add "and this knowledge and thought 
crushes the universe. The universe is as nought against that 
thought, that knowledge. ' ' Do you grasp the mightiness of man, 
his thought and his knowledge when in conscious possession of 
that wonderful power? Pascal's words are a formulation of 
the difference between the universe and man and it is indicated 
what his tremendous power is : Thought. 

Like everything else, this power can be misused. When 
misused, those breaks I talked about arise. 

Before I now proceed to illustrate the breaks by stories, 
tales, I will show the law by which the persons of my stories 
should have acted, and, if they had done so, there would have 
been no break. 

That law, formulated at this same historic period, is found 
in the Gita in the instructions given to Arjuna. Arjuna is per- 
fectly conscious of his own power to have his own will, and he 
wishes to have it, at the same time that duty demands that he 



110 THE INNEK LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KIETG 

shall obey and destroy the usurper of the oppressed land, though 
to do so involves the killing of both friends and relativea 
Krishna teaches him that he must drop all fears and personal 
interests and carry out the duty imposed upon him as warrior 
and prince and realize that it is Ishvara, who is both lord and 
law, who is the doer and not Arjuna. Arjuna must realize that 
he must fight without passion or desire, without anger and 
hatred and without fears. This is the Gita. It is the formula- 
tion of the law for men of active and combative tempers. The 
formulation lacks totally any and all expressions that could place 
it parallel to the Sermon on the Mount. And that is its weakest 
point. The little book "The Voice of the Silence " supplies 
most of the defects. The same law put in forms applicable to 
us, to you and to me, will be something like this. Life is not 
ours ; we are not its originators nor responsible for events or 
the outcome of events. Under no circumstances must we judge 
according to our own inclinations what ought to be done, but 
simply do or not do, awaiting the course of developments, which 
will show us what and how to do. And to this I may add that 
developments will come quickly in moments of doubt; they will 
not let us wait long. I may also say that they will come in the 
way best suitable for us. Now you know how hard it is for* 
us to believe this and wait. How impetuous we are, and why? 
Because we have that tremendous power I spoke of before, and 
wish to use it, wish to satisfy our own vanity, to prove how 
mighty we are, all because of ignorance till instructed. 

I will now tell you some stories to illustrate how we act 
and how the law works. First, I will give you a prose rendering 
of Schiller's profound poem, Das verschleierte Bild zu Sais. 

A young Greek, burning with thirst for knowledge, came to 
Sais in Egypt to study with the priesthood and explore the 
secrets of the land of Romitu. It happened one day that the 
hierophant brought him to a lonely temple where the youth 
beheld a veiled statue, of which the high priest said: "That 
is Truth.' ' The impulsive student at once demanded to know 
why he was not brought here before : 

"When I am striving after Truth alone, 
Seek'st thou to hide that very Truth from me?" 

" The Godhead's self alone can answer thee," 

Replied the hierophant, "Let no rash mortal 

Disturb this veil," said he, "till raised by me. . . ." 



SAIS 111 

The boy from Hellas could not understand so singular a 
command. There was Truth, only covered with a thin gauze, 
and he not allowed to raise it ! Inquisitively he asked his wise 
guide: 

" And thou 
Hast never ventur'd, then, to raise the veil?" 
' ' I ? Truly not ! I never even felt 
The least desire." ' « Is 't possible? If I 
Were sever 'd from the Truth by nothing else 

Than this thin gauze " ' i And a divine decree, ' ' 

His guide broke in. ' ' Far heavier than thou think'st 

Is this thin gauze, my son. Light to thy hand 

It may be but most weighty to thy conscience. ' ' 

An insatiable desire consumed the youth. At night he could 
not sleep. In the day he sought his way to the isolated temple ; 
he found no rest anywhere. 

One night he lost control of himself and found his way into 
the temple. Suddenly he stood in the sanctuary facing the veiled 
statue. The goddess stood before him more mysteriously than 
ever. In the dim moonlight, which fell from an opening above, 
he gradually approached the statue, till with a sudden bound he 
reached it with the cry : 

"Whatever is hid behind, I'll raise the veil." 
And then he shouted : ' ' Yes ! I will behold it ! " 

"Behold it!" 
Eepeated in mocking tone the distant echo. 

He spoke, and true to his word he lifted the veil. What 
did he see? Probably nothing but the statue of Isis. He was 
found unconscious next morning at the foot of the statue. To 
the priests he only said : 

"Woe to that man who wins the Truth by guilt, 
For Truth so gain'd will ne'er reward its owner." 

This young Greek, evidently a man of high order, was per- 
fectly right in his search for wisdom and in going for it to 
Egypt, but he had not up to the time of his transgression dis- 
covered that the main lesson in all temple methods and for him 



112 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

was not learning, but obedience. He was an embodiment of 
self-assertion. 

Learning brings conflict and unrest, because it keeps us on 
this plane of life. Obedience to our Higher Self brings that 
stillness about which Qvang-zse spoke, and of which you read 
in the last chapter, a stillness in which Tao holds our "spirit 
in its arms," a stillness which gives our form its perfectness. 
Learning is all very well for its purposes, but I have already in 
another chapter told you how little mystics care for it, and 
told you that learning is not of the heart or will, but only of 
the brain, and therefore not the method that produces heart 
culture, or, which is the same, the Inner Life. Only heart 
can teach heart ; only will can control will. Intellect and learn- 
ing are strangers here and do not know the right knock. Spir- 
itual life moves on a curve of love, not on a straight line of 
logic, and the magic chain that binds men to men and] to 
Divinity, is forged by love and spirit. If this young man had 
learned obedience and lived in obedience to his Higher Self 
he would have been brought into that stillness, in which our 
grosser self burns up ; in which no physical instincts are aroused, 
and no sense of cupidity stirred, and nothing sways our selfish- 
ness ; a stillness that is pure white flame and spiritual tranquil- 
ity; a stillness which Laotzse (XVI) says " returns us to the 
root" or origin of existence; a stillness in which Isis would 
have raised the veil according to promise and thereby also 
lifted his longings into an eternal transmutation and bliss. By 
practice of silence and solitude, stillness would have come. That 
which to us in our moral and spiritual life is silence and soli- 
tude is, in the cosmic life, called stillness. In other words, silence 
and solitude are subjective conditions ; stillness is objective. 

What a difference between this young Greek and that beg- 
gar I have told you about in a former chapter and whom Tauler 
met. This young Greek is an awful illustration upon "taking" 
before time has come; upon "having one's own will," upon self- 
assertion, and thereby coming into that dreadful conflict I spoke 
of and said that it was much more serious than any conflict 
with lust. You heard from his own mouth how little he knew 
of non-action (Wu-Wei) or Inner Life, and you heard the awful 
confession of the dying man. What application dare I make 
as regards yourself? I dare not make any, but I may ask if not 
in some such way some of you may have brought yourself into 
a suffering that now tortures you? 



THE ILIAD OF THE EAST 113 

But the break may be only intellectual, as it is with many. 
People simply break with the ideas of childhood, instead of out- 
growing them and substitute for those ideas some crude and 
ill understood scientific notions; notions that contain no life- 
marrow to fill their bones and hence leave them weak. These 
people are ever afterwards incapable of anything definite and 
become a burden to themselves and others, but they are not 
sinners ; they are only in confusion, and that is bad enough. 

Some one will now say that if we let this great, wonderful 
and also dangerous power alone, we would be better off and 
they will hypnotize themselves into that belief. That, too, is 
false and I will demonstrate it by another story. The story is 
called "The Love of Indra" and is found in the Eamayana. 
I give it in a slightly abridged form as translated by Mrs. 
Frederika Richardson in her "The Iliad of the East." This is 
the story : 

"There were some young maidens standing just on the 
threshold of life; for childhood is the vestibule merely; it is 
hung with pretty pictures. Just at this point paused our young 
maidens, half awed by the tumult, half fascinated by all the 
movement and the light. It chanced that at this moment the 
gaze of Indra fell on them, and beholding them, so beautiful 
and so pure, he loved them. Flashing earthward, in a form of 
fire, he kissed them on the lips, and left them with blanched 
cheeks, and eyes aflame. They knew a god had been with them, 
and thrilled them by his touch, and yet had winged his way 
back to his High Home ere they had tasted aught of passion, 
save its first sudden pain. So, with a fever on them, and a 
vague desire in their innocent breasts, seeking Whom they knew 
not, What they could not say, they wandered forth; and Love, 
who breathes only in the upper air, led them to a Hilly Country, 
where the large stars seemed smiling near. And there, still far 
beyond them, but looking down with deeply passionate eyes, 
they saw the great God, Indra ; and he held out his large arms, 
wooing them to the fire of his embrace. The hearts of the 
young maidens failed them. Fain had each been to turn her 
back; but her soul within of a sudden found its wings, and bore 
her, in a rush of superhuman ecstasy, to the arms of the en ; 
amoured God. Thus, ignorant of the bitter cost to mortals, 
who press up, with quivering lips and heaving breasts, to meet 
the desire of the Sons of Heaven, did they receive the ' ' sorrow- 
ful great gift," the Love of Indra. Our little maidens, having 



114 THE INKEB LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

no previous knowledge of all an immortal's love involved, fretted 
against the crown Indra had laid on them; because, although it 
wrapped them in a light, it scorched and tore their smooth young 
brows, and mingled with its beams of gold the lifeblood of the 
wearers. 'We are faint,' they said, 'and weary! The bloom 
has faded from our cheeks, and all the youth of our hearts is 
dying! Our eyes are tired with beauty! Tired — and light is 
but a splendid pain. Our hearts are spent with passion, this 
eternal rapture will destroy us. Oh, that we could rest! Best 
— rest, from the fever of our lives, ere it exhaust our power, 
and we die!' So, one day that this longing for rest overcame 
them, they strayed from the mountain of Meru, where the Gods 
quaff sparkling nectar, and hearken to the song that dies not. 
"With their hands to their ears the faithless brides of Indra 
fled from the witching strains, and sought the sheltered valleys, 
where life is calm, and men and women pass slowly through 
the stages of time; marking progress merely by the succession 
of season, and dying, at length, because they have dwelt too 
long, not lived too much. And in their wanderings they came 
upon the country of the Uttarakurus. Oh, that was a pleasant 
land, and surely just the spot where our weary fugitives might 
find the peace they longed for. There were no extremes of 
heat nor cold, no excess of light nor depth of gloom; all was 
equable and tempered calm, like the inhabitants themselves, 
whose dispositions were inaccessible to all violent emotions, 
which overstrain a delicate frame. There was no need for any 
exertion either; for in a wood, hung from the boughs of the 
trees all that the heart could desire; jewels, and raiment, and 
luxurious couches, and delicious viands of every description; 
one had only to walk thither and gather them. The flowers in 
this country were of gold, so were the mountains; the rivulets 
were so choked up with gold that they slept between their 
banks, and did not attempt to sing. The women who dwelt there 
were all youthful and lovely; the men were all courteous, and 
learned in saying pleasant things; old age, or disease, or pov- 
erty, or suffering, or grief, were not known here ; it is probable 
that all such things were soaked away out of the land by the 
black and terrible river, that swept with its sinister floods the 
borders of the Land of Gold, and rolled, muttering ever words 
of menace and despair — that were not understood by the smiling 
Uttarakurus. Amid this luxurious people the pale wanderers 
paused ; and, struck by their strange beauty and their wanness, 



THE ILIAD OF THE EAST 115 

born of an ardor unknown to any here, the inhabitants nocked 
around them, saying, ' Stay with us and share our lives. ' Then, 
at first, a pang of unsatisfied longing held back the souls where 
Indra had set his love. But, little by little, each sought to reason 
herself out of the memory of those rapturous moments spent 
up among the mountains. 'Help me to live it down!' cried 
out each weary heart; and the appealing hands went forth, 
seeking for some stay. They met the smooth palms of the bland 
Uttarakurus. "Let us lead you along the path of pleasure,' ' 
they said to the brides of Indra. But the beloved of the Sun- 
god found no delight in the golden country, nor in the wood, 
nor in the company of the smiling Uttarakurus. "Better to 
have died in a god's embrace," they moaned, "than to crawl 
through the long days in this hateful city. ' ' But they had made 
their choice; and Mahendra, god of the Firmament, has no 
welcome for renegades! In the heart of the Golden Land his 
curse found them out. 'Have ye forgotten,' he cried to them, 
"how, in the lone Hill Country, ye lay awhile on my breast, 
fainting almost with rapture, while the large stars were smiling 
near, and the night hung, still, around? Have ye forgotten how, 
pale and beautiful, ye stepped through the groves of Nandana; 
and how light robed ye in splendor; and the stars I had laid 
in your bosoms glowed there, and flamed with a glory that 
shamed the pale orbs of heaven? Why have ye thrown by your 
crowns, whose gems flashed through the ages, witnesses to the 
past and the future that ye were chosen as the spouses of Indra? 
What though your slight heads were bowed, and your fragile 
strength near broken : was not my arm around you? Who would 
not totter and fail, to be upheld by the amorous Indra? What 
though your spirits' growth were too swift for your delicate 
frames? As guerdon for your shortened lives, my love had 
made ye immortal. But ye have loved ease better than glory. 
0, foolish ones; ease can never be yours. Ye have tasted an 
Immortal's love. And your glory ye have abandoned. Dwell, 
then, as Exiles and Strangers in this town ye have preferred 
to the mountains ; and, since ye have dreaded the tempest, endure 
the torments of the calm.' 

"And so, in the city of the Uttarakurus, dwell these 
pale women with the lustrous eyes, who were once the 
beloved of Indra; and they hold no friendly intercourse 
nor have sympathy with any; each morning gives fresh 
birth to the wild desire, that gnaws their hearts ; each night finds 



116 THE INNEK LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KHSTG 

them in a dead despair; for the pitiless curse of Mahendra drives 
them down to their unhonored graves ! ' ' 

Here again it is self-assertion, not non-action (Wu-Wei) 
that creates the trouble. These girls had no faith and yet they 
were in the presence of the Great Love. Having been chosen 
by Indra, they were supposed to be giant spirits and able to 
live in that sphere of light and life, which is Indra 's domain. 
Had they been common girls, their faithlessness would not have 
been surprising nor their punishment so severe. They should 
have allowed themselves to be burned up. Indra's stinging 
reproach accuses them rightly of disobedience to their call. 
Nature's method with common people is essentially different 
from Indra's. Those educated by nature run their full course 
before they discover her method with them. For such, the rule 
is that not till emotions have had their full course will they 
rise in intellectual light. They are like firebrands which, burn- 
ing without flame, are merely smoking annoyances and not lights. 
The very moment an emotion rises to white light condition, it 
becomes the savior of its offer. 

Laotzse says apropos (XL) "Stillness overcomes heat." 
Surely before long these girls would have discovered what 
Laotzse also says: (XXVI) "Stillness lies back of all motion." 
even we, without being called by Mahenda, may climb a mountain 
and discover that stillness is there and not in the valley. How 
much more those girls, so favored! Take the story literally or 
symbolically; either way it is full of lessons on my subject of 
the inner conflicts of the Ego. Everywhere it is action, actions, 
and again actions of our own, namely, on the plane of this life, 
that cause our diremptions, that split our personality in two, 
that breaks off our harmony with our Higher Self. If we let 
the Higher Self in us act, this will not happen. If we let our 
Higher Self act, we shall be in stillness and Tao will take our 
6 ' spirit in its arms. ' ' 

Do not misunderstand this point on non-action, Wu-Wei. 
The meaning is not the idea involved in the washerwoman's 
hope. Have you heard of her, 



" Who always was tired, 

Who lived in a house where no help was hired. 

And whose last words on earth were : 

Dear friends, I am going 

Where no sweeping ain 't done, nor churning nor sewing, 



STILLNESS 117 

And everything there will be just to my wishes, 

For there they don't eat, and there's no washing of dishes; 

And though anthems are constantly ringing, 

I, having no voice, will get rid of the singing. 

Don't mourn for me now, and don't mourn for me ever, 

For I'm going to do nothing for ever and ever." 

This is not what Inner-Life people understand by "Non- 
action" or "Stillness." They mean by Non-action, Wu-Wei, 
the withdrawing from all this world's interests and activities, 
all of which lie on a plane of life they do not want to have 
anything to do with, because their longings are not satisfied 
with such interests or activties. Their hearts pant for the 
Living God, as does the deer for the water brook. The Inner- 
Life people seek stillness or such a condition beyond the senses, 
where no noise or sound heard by the senses is possible, a still- 
ness which is the kernel and core of the cosmos. 

In my first illustration I had a man and his intellect in the 
centre. In this second story which you have just heard I had 
woman and her emotions in the center. They both fell because 
they said No! to obedience or the law of their life. The man's 
law of life is intellectual, and in due course of time his life 
swings around to its opposite: emotion, and the two complete 
him. The woman's law of life is emotion, and in due course of 
time her life swings around to its opposite, intellect; and the 
two complete her. This is the normal evolution. But when the 
breaks, the splits, the diremptions occur, an abnormal condition 
sets in and as my stories told, the results are frightful. 

Would we be better off if we did not make use of that tre- 
mendous power of ours! Perhaps we would not suffer then? 
That also would be a mistake and I will show it by a story of 
my own, modeled on a few elements I have borrowed from the 
Hungarian. I have named my story "The Copyist." It runs 
as follows : 

Our friend is a copyist in a government office. Like every- 
body else, he wanted to go to a certain masquerade, but unlike 
everybody else that went, he had nothing wherewith to buy a 
costume. He had an idea. He sold himself to a Jew to carry 
advertisements through the halls and ball rooms. And so, fitted 
out in a gorgeous dress, full of announcements, he partook in 
the revel — after a fashion. 



118 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

Soon he found himself the target for all the wit, good 
humor and ill will of the assembly. Poor devil, he stood it for 
a while ; but soon, too soon for him, he found out what it is to 
sell oneself for mercenary purposes, even though one might see 
the masquerade of life. Behind every masque, it appeared to 
him, a pair of eyes followed him. The advertisements sewed 
into his costume seemed to burn like hot coals, and excited his 
highly overwrought nerve-system and completely prostrated 
him; his throat seemed to be on fire; his eyes grew inflamed 
and unsteady. He began to feel as though he were about to be 
attacked with brain fever. 

At last he managed to find his way out from the hilarious 
crowd, and got into a distant cabinet, to an alcove turned into a 
kind of flower-grove by greenery and sweet-smelling flowers. 
The light was reflected by transparent needles, like stalactites, 
hanging from the ceiling, and it fell brightly upon a basin filled 
with fish of brilliant colors. The soft murmuring of a little 
fountain readily put him into a state of trance, and he dreamed. 
A large leaf fanned gently his fever-hot forehead, but only 
gloomy thoughts would rise in his sick brain. Ah, yonder they 
amused themselves and were almost lost in the whirl of pas- 
sionate enjoyment. But here was he, not only hungry and 
exhausted both mentally and physically — not so much, however, 
from the past few moments of excitement — nay, back of this 
hour lay years and years of unmanly indulgences, and recol- 
lections now arose in his mind, none of which could infuse any 
self-respect into his weak heart, or bring fresh thoughts to his 
withered soul. Poor fellow, only once, this one time, had he 
tried to gain admission to what appeared as the ideal brightness 
of life, in which so many seemed to live and enjoy themselves, 
and here was he, an outcast. Dimly he saw it; he had gained 
admission as an uncalled one, and by dishonorable means ! Every- 
one could see it, every piece of his costume bore the advertise- 
ments of the Jew, Abraham Trailles, No. 32 Fools lane. What 
was there to do but to return to the meanness and low life where 
he belonged and for a few years more drag himself along to 
an unhonored grave. 

Suddenly he felt himself touched upon the shoulder. Half 
sleeping, half beside himself, he looked up, and beheld: on the 
large leaf over his head he saw a beautiful woman, sweet as a 
sylph, slender and tiny, but gracefully strong, and in a dress of 
pure, fine linen. He noticed particularly a large fan in her hand. 



LOSS OF SELF 119 

A pink masque covered the upper part of her face and left 
uncovered a mouth of exquisite forms and lines. She seemed 
a fay indeed. He gazed upon her with admiration and attraction, 
and asked gently : ' ' Who art thou, sweet maiden ? " " Dost thou 
not know me? " she replied, and removed the masque. It seemed 
to him he had seen that brow before ; those eyes and their dreamy 
looks. Had he not often unconsciously thrown his mind into 
the mystic realms of the ideal world and there beheld this ideal 
of woman: His own personal self. Now she was near him, so 
near that he might clasp her in his arms. "Dost thou know 
me now? I played with thee when thou wast little and sung 
songs for thee. Surely thou canst not have forgotten it. But 
where didst thou go to ? Thou keptest thyself in the house while 
I picked flowers in the meadows and gathered green leaves in 
the forest or watched the cuckoo, or listened to the songsters 
in the trees. Where wast thou while I sat by the brook and the 
lark hung in the air overhead, ringing out its peals of joy over 
life? Where wast thou in the time of thy youth ?" 

"Eight hours of the day I spent in the schoolroom and under 
the whip of the schoolmaster.' ' 

"Dost thou remember the day when they sent thee out into 
the wide, wide world? Dost thou remember that I followed 
thee and spoke to thee of trusting in me, and I would keep thee 
and preserve thee? But thou didst forget me when thou earnest 
to the gay capital. Thou didst lose thyself among the many 
people and their vanities! I sought thee at thy revels and in 
thy garret, but thou didst not know me. When thou lookedst 
upon the beautiful women, I stood before thee, but thou didst 
prefer flesh and blood to soul. Never, never didst thou come 
to me!" 

"What didst thou do when thou wast young and gay no 
more, when thou wast poor and miserable, when thou hadst 
become a ruin to thyself?" 

"I worked; I worked; I tried to save myself. Ten hours a 
day I copied in the office, and at home I copied — I copied 
always!" 

' ' And now. What dost thou do now ? ' 9 

"I copy still!" 

"And, in the future, what wilst thou do?" 

Our friend, the copyist, was fairly startled by that question, 
and humiliated, too, for he had nothing to answer but to say — 
"To copy, still!" He burst into tears; he cried the hot tears 



120 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

of remorse. But suddenly, as if in a fit of over-natural energy, 
he opened his arms and tremblingly exclaimed, "I will love 
thee, I will embrace thee, I will own thee." Then it happened 
that the maiden's fan opened wide and covered her face; and 
lo! he beheld smiling landscapes, youth in its native richness 
and with its prophecy of love, and the thousand forms of life's 
beauty and charm, all in harmonious forms and living colors. 
The vision revivified him, and forgetting himself and his de- 
graded position, like another Faust, he rushed out to embrace 
this sweet genius, that held the pictures in her hand, the lady 
who so charmed him. 

A gentle stroke brought him to his senses. 

"Stop, my dear Mr. Copyist! To love me! To embrace 
me! To own me! I fear thou art too old! We have grown 
apart ! Thou are no more young and strong ; thy hair has turned 
gray and thin; thine eyes are no more lustrous and thy soul is 
withered, thy spirit darkened! Thou art no more fit for love. 
Know this, that I, thy soul, thy youth, thy personal being, thy 
Self is no reality, for thou hast not given me life; I am, and 
must remain to thee a dream, a phantom. Thou hast lost me, 
though thou never didst possess me!" 

She disappeared. 

Like a madman he rushed into the ballroom to catch her. 
He set everything in confusion and drove every one aside 
and frightened all. He was mad. 

Next day an old doctor stood leaning over a dying man in 
the hospital of the poorhouse. The dying man was unknown to 
all around him. Just before he died he was heard to say, "I 
lost what I never possessed ! ' ' 

Commentary is hardly necessary. The story explains itself. 
A copy of that man can be seen all around us. Business life 
grinds a man into the dust of indifference, and, as if to make 
his misery so much greater, life gives the flickering taper a 
whiff of fresh air in the last moment, and the darkness seems 
so much greater. This copyist is a warning example on not 
to bury one's gifts in business, that may overwhelm, or in the 
soil, where they may rust. We have our gifts for use — but not 
for abuse. It must not be overlooked or ignored that all of 
these three persons mentioned are people of higher orders. They 
are of that class which life or nature invites to the university 
method called heavenliness. They are not of those for whom a 



NATURE AS AN EDUCATOR 121 

common school method of earthliness is enough, because they are 
not yet ready to quit earth. 

Nature has two methods by which she educates us. The 
one, the common school method of earthliness, is applied first 
and to all, and consists mainly in learning to overcome lusts 
of all kinds, and in awakening the soul. When the pupil has 
attained some practice in overcoming lusts and begins to see 
beyond his own notions, the other is offered, not applied. There 
is a vast difference here. The first method is applied because 
it contains a great deal of compulsion. In all our earlier stages 
of awakening we are not voluntarily active; we learn only be- 
cause we must. You hear that frequently from people. They 
tell you that life has made them do so, and forced them to 
believe so and so. Such expressions clearly show that their 
progress has not been one conducted by inner love and high 
aspiration, but has been a result of necessity. 

The other method, the one I have called the university 
method of heavenliness, is offered to those who desire it, not to 
those who yet see no need of it. Only those desire this method 
who discover for themselves that there is such a method and 
who not only can see that the present world is vanity, but whose 
inner need craves for the Higher, no matter whatever the cost. 

I look upon the three persons I have used as illustrations 
as three persons who had come near enough to call for the 
higher method. Hence it was offered, but — they failed ! 

Now, to come back to what I said in the beginning of the 
chapter, about the breaks, the splits, the diremption you may 
have experienced. Like these three persons, you rose in mo- 
ments beyond yourself both in light and love and you demanded 
higher light and profounder love. When they were not forth- 
coming, you stretched out your hand to take "the Kingdom of 
God" by force like that young Greek, or you gave up and ran 
away from the greater love offered, like those girls of Indra, 
or you wasted your resources in false loves and dissipations like 
the copyist and as only too many do, who believe themselves 
geniuses before they are out of the mind's swaddling clothes. 
The hope these three had for stillness or for a world that can- 
not be moved was not based upon obedience to their Higher 
Self, but was simply momentary fancy. Hence the failure and 
suffering, when the higher method of heavenliness was offered 
them. 

Beware! Ask not of Spirit to be trained! Learn first 



122 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

the principles of obedience to higher Self; first then will the 
revelation of those principles of form, law, order and truth be a 
blessing. 

Beware, when the test comes ! Do not act before the right 
moment, when Isis raises the veil ! Do not fear the great love ! 
Do not ignore the repeated calls! Beware, when the critical 
moment comes ! 

In spite of all dangers, we must develop that thonght-f orm 
or those principles I called form, law, order, truth. We must 
develop them ; if we do not, we never come to conscious posses- 
sion of ourselves, or of those principles which are offered so 
freely to us in this cycle ; and not coming to conscious possession 
,of ourselves or of those principles is a calamity I cannot find 
word for. It means the loss of the thousands of years of this 
our cycle — a loss which perhaps to those ignorant of the nature 
of the loss means little, but which to those who have even a 
slight idea of the value of such time is an irreparable loss — 
who knows if there ever be another opportunity? Who knows? 

Without swinging out into the immensity of space and the 
thousands of years, think only of the poor copyist and his fate. 
How can he repair his loss of that which he really never pos- 
sessed? There is no psychological ground in him on which he can 
work and where is it to come from in the future? We cannot 
imagine his salvation, his restoration, on any rational basis. 

I am now where I leave the subject of this chapter for the 
present. I shall continue it in next chapter and hope to finish 
it. But I have yet something to say to you. Does it not appear 
to you that those of us who have some idea of these important 
subjects ought to go out into the world and preach to our fol- 
low men "to make up" before it is too late? Who will serve in 
this ministry? We will enroll you this day! 

Ought we not to get out as missionaries to tell our fellow- 
men what treasures the Inner Life offers and offers for nothing, 
if we but will let go all kinds of entanglements with "this" 
world, a world with which we really have nothing to do. Our 
home is not here ! It is yonder ! 

Ought we not also tell our fellow men that in as much as 
they live in this cycle, they have the benefit of all its characteris- 
tics, even that mighty power of thought-forms I have spoken 
of, but that they bring curses upon themselves by misuse of 
that power? And should we not show them that they are in a 
bad way and that the world at large lies in suffering, because 



THE UNIVERSAL MINISTRY 123 

that great power has been misused? Ought we not preach 
obedience? 

There is no need of an ordination or commission from some- 
body else. The witness of the Higher Self within is both call 
and ordination. We are all in a Universal Ministry, as many 
as have understood the motions of the Higher Self. 



NATURE WORSHIP 
VIII. 

I TAKE up the thread where I left it in the last chapter and 
will now speak about Stillness as Nature's essential life. I 
maintain that had those three persons — the Greek — the 

maidens — the copyist — remained self-contained, they would 
have discovered how nature's stillness embraced them and they 
would not have fallen so deep as they did. I shall now, as I have 
done in all the foregone chapters, point to Nature as our mother, 
our monitor, our educator and trainer in the Inner Life. To 
prevent misunderstandings, I repeat what I have said several 
times before : nature is spirit visible, or which is the same, the 
only form under which we can see spirit in activity is in nature 
(and in man, of course, but for the present I leave man out and 
consider nature, the greater of the two). 

Ever since the time of the Gnostics we meet in the ancient 
writings with testimonies about Sophia, Heavenly Wisdom, that 
came in personal form to those who lived the Inner Life, and 
even in our own day there are people living who have received 
visits of Sophia. She is Deity revealed in nature, and, is de- 
scribed variously in all holy books, but always as man's best 
friend and companion and his example. I say, therefore, Nature 
is Sophia and Sophia is Nature. 

I may well appropriate as my own the following lines : 

i < There are Three Testaments which show 
What God both is and does ; 
And he who well the first would know 

The second must peruse ; 
Nor will he in the second speed, 
Unless the third he rightly read." 

The three testaments, or which are the same witnesses in the 
world, are God — Man — Nature. He who would know God, must 



NATURE-WORSHIP 125 

know man ; but to know man, one must read nature carefully. I 
think these lines justify the eminent place I give nature for the 
present and in these chapters on the Inner Life in connection 
with the Tao-Teh-King. 

Of the thousands of examples that could be given, I will 
mention only one upon her teachings, one to show how she can 
and does teach us to worship, and, worship I call the highest 
expression for our spiritual life. I call it the highest expression, 
because worship gives movement, unity, and system to our life 
and actions. You must understand I am talking about "worth- 
scipe, ' ' the old Saxon form. That word means value, apprecia- 
tion. Nature is teaching us to value life, to rejoice in God's gifts. 
She has not prepared for our use any liturgy of canned flat- 
teries or strings of petitions, nor does she lay down the law for 
the Deity what to do for us. Such unworthy acts are not hers. 
She is neither browbeating Deity nor shaking us with fears. 
She gives us an example and pattern for life and happiness, and 
rejoices in the value, the worth of life. And that is worship, acts 
worthy the Deity and for our upbuilding. 

Do not tell me when I shall have read Whittier's poem, en- 
titled ' i Nature 's Worship, ' ' that the poet has simply personified 
some of nature's actions and read into them something very 
characteristic. Do not say that, for you have against you the 
great multitude of scholars who know about these things, and 
you reveal your own poverty as regards Inner-Life experiences. 
Man learned his method of worship from nature; it did not 
spring from out his own mind. As regards worship (worth- 
ship), as in all other fields, order or method came first and ex- 
isted before man found a name for it. Our definitions come long 
after we have discovered the facts in nature. At this day we 
know of numerous facts and ways of nature, but we have no 
name for them. Our thought-form system is but of recent date 
as I told you in the last chapter. Man's heart craved for ex- 
pressions, and as he felt the power of such actions, attitudes and 
motions of nature which Whittier describes, he imitated them, 
and he does likewise to this day, when he comes down to the 
bottom of his heart, and until he does it, he never attains full 
God-wisdom nor the practice thereof, call it religion or anything 
else. Such acts follow and are identical with the second birth. 
Did not the real great prophets live in the open? Yes, all of 
them ! Those that came from monastic cells, were not of the first 
class. Wonderful as Tauler was, I have this against him, that 



126 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

he pulled the cap down over his eyes, that the flowers should 
not disturb his meditations. Buddha took the text for his first 
sermon from a fire in the woods across the river where he was 
sitting. As for Jesus, you know how his parables abound in 
nature-life ; how he preached from a boat, loved mountains and 
always traveled in the Open. And Laotzse either starts with a 
nature-symbol or ends with one. You shall hear enough about 
that as I proceed with my chapters. I repeat it, the great mas- 
ters live and have always lived in the Open, and that is why they 
and we have a common ground to meet on. I say we and mean 
those who associate with the spirit abroad. Examine into this 
and you will see it for yourself. 

By nature the superficial observer understands all the tan- 
gible manifoldness that impinges upon his senses, and that 
manifoldness only. But that manifoldness is only the fringe of 
that manicolored carpet which the great mother has spread out 
for us to walk upon. She herself is nature in a different sense, 
namely, she is the weaver of that carpet and those fringes. She 
is both object and subject, both doer and the deed. And she is 
as personal as you and I ; and that is why we can have company 
with her. When we call her mother we are not merely indulging 
in personalities, we are speaking as does heart to heart. That 
many cannot understand this, condemns them and proves most 
conclusively that they are not on the path. Nature has woven 
symbols of the most varied designs into this carpet, but they all 
lead us to the solitary roads, where she is ready to meet us. 
These solitary roads may look like green meadows or barren 
mountain tops, like woodlands or deserts, like the open ocean or 
the still lake. Whatever they look like or whatever we call them, 
she has provided them for our sake that we may meet her in 
seclusion and solitude and have a heart to heart talk. It is not 
true that she is indifferent to the individual, caring only for the 
race. Nature never falls into those terrible disturbances which 
we human creatures fall into because we will not learn the prin- 
ciple of non-action. Nature is beyond such a conflict, to say the 
least. 

Will you please notice, how intensely active nature is in the 
illustration I shall give, and yet how quiet, how still, how su- 
blimely " non-active' ' she is. Nature is always double, not to 
say multiple, in all her doings. Outwardly she seems to be bent 
upon beating her own record for multiple productions, but her 
real doings lie behind the array of facts which is the all so many 



NATURE-WORSHIP 127 

of us only see. Nature in these "real doings," which are voli- 
tional, always points beyond herself and therefore she is our 
example. I shall read to you Whittier's only too little known 
and less understood poem: "The Worship of Nature." Please 
notice that she acts like a human person. 

"The harp at Nature's advent strung 
Has never ceased to play ; 
The songs the stars of morning sung 
Have never died away. 

And prayer is made, and prayer is given, 

By all things near and far ; 
The Ocean looketh up to heaven, 

And mirrors every star. 

Its waves are kneeling on the strand, 

As kneels the human knee, 
Their white locks bowing to the sand, 

The priesthood of the sea ! 

They pour their glittering treasure forth, 

Their gifts of pearl they bring, 
And all the listening hills of earth 

Take up the song they sing. 

The green earth sends her incense up 

From many a mountain shrine ; 
From folded leaf and dewy cup 

She pours her sacred wine. 

The mists above the morning rills 

Eise white as wings of prayer ; 
The altar-curtains of the hills 

Are sunset's purple air. 

The winds with hymns of praise are loud, 

Or low with sobs of pain, — 
The thunder-organ of the cloud 

The dropping tears of rain. 



128 THE IiTNEK LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

With drooping head and branches crossed 

The twilight forest grieves, 
Or speaks with tongues of Pentecost 

From all its sunlit leaves. 

The blue sky is the temple's arch, 

Its transept earth and air, 
The music of its starry march 

The chorus of a prayer. 

So Nature keeps the reverent frame 

With which her years began, 
And all her signs and voices shame 

The prayerless heart of Man." 

This ought to shame most people; it shows how nature is 
stillness, or in that essential condition so highly praised by all 
mystics and so intensely sought for. This shows how nature 
is in the condition of the sage, such as you have heard Laotzse 
define him, as the one who "acts non-action ; ' ' the one whose 
work is always on the plane above this and yet whose effects 
are visible on this plane. Nature is the one who is not hasty 
with the hand, like that young Greek, and not afraid of losing the 
bodily life, like those girl loves of Indra, and, not indifferently 
wasting the measures of time and at last finding that that was 
lost which was never really possessed. Nature is in no such con- 
flict. Neither is the sage. Nay, the sage is he who lives in sim- 
plicity, such as you have heard me describe it from the Tao-Teh- 
King, and, simplicity and stillness are synonymous terms. — 

The harp at Nature's advent strung 

Has never ceased to play. 
The songs the stars of morning sung 

Have never died away. 

Indeed, nature sings, and "there is always a song, my dear, 
somewhere/ ' as the Hoosier poet told us. B*it he did not tell 
us what the song was about and failed to interpret her notes. 
Another has done it. I have heard it from another poet, Chr. 
Fr. K. Molbeck, a poet far away and in the Vikings-land, whence 
some would least of all expect to hear a translation of nature's 
call. That poet interprets the song to be a call to us to be still. 
Here it is in prose, as best I can translate it : 



NATURE-WOKSHIP 129 

"Oh, man, thou who like the wild wind rushes over earth 
and ne 'er throws the lead to the bottom of thy breast ; thou, who 
would fathom life, but forget its source: seek for once thyself 
and God — but still! End this wild rush, this restless sighing! 
Put the ear to thine own breast, where thy soul is in prison! 

"Dam-up and seal the flood of thy lusts; seek then thy- 
self in the depths of thy bosom — but still ! 

"Stop this hurry and haste from one door of life to an- 
other. In this noise, how can thou expect God's voice to hear, or 
thine own ; neither of them come like thunder storms ; they visit 
the heart like gentle winds — and still ! 

"Ye generation of men, full of evil and hatred, rushing 
through the world with tongue cursing and murmuring, what is 
thy goal? What seekest thou in the tumult? Behold the flower 
grows towards heaven — and still ! 

"Hear, everywhere in field and meadow, a prayer for still- 
ness is lifted up. Even midday's golden mouth bids stillness in 
the woods. The stars along the coasts of heaven, playing silver 
harps, bid thee be still ! ' ' 

"Be still" is the refrain "of the song that is always, my 
dear, somewhere/ ' Be still! is nature's call, because stillness is 
her innermost, her mystery! Stillness is Nature's Truth and 
Beauty! Nature never says a word about Truth, but with in- 
finite patience and in stillness she forces us to hear it. She has 
time to wait. 

Nature never sings her own praise ; but to all, she is good- 
ness, especially to those who will quietly sit down at her table 
and take her bounties. She does it in stillness. Beauty is her 
wayside sacrament administered in every flower, and, she goes 
about spreading beauty everywhere and does it in stillness and 
without ostentation. Beauty is her hallmark and you find it even 
in the dust on the flower by the highroad. In spite of man's 
heedless conduct the dust falls harmoniously. In her workshop 
she is ever building, but in stillness she plans. On the stage of 
life, we see the players come and go, but never herself; she 
stands still in one of the wings. She makes us talk, but she her- 
self has no speech or language ; she is stillness. In short: 

' ' Forward, ' ' is the mad cry of the world ! 

"Homeward" is the gentle sigh of the heart and Nature ! 

"Homeward is the meaning and the aim and end of the "be 
still," Nature's imploring call. These two words "homeward" 



130 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

and "be still ' connect with each other. Home is stillness and 
stillness is home. The two express themselves in worship and 
there is no — nor can there be — worship where there is no home 
in God, or stillness of God. Nature is anxious for us to come to 
worship or to worth-ship, which is the real word or meaning. 
To worth-ship means to consider valuable. We ought to do as she 
does and as Whittier expresses it : strike the harp and each with 
our own tongue sing praises like the " stars of morning ;" we 
ought to make prayers or lift up our hearts and look up into 
heaven ; we ought to kneel or prostrate ourselves like the sands 
on the shore, and, thus we shall be baptized with water drawn 
from the eternal wells ; we ought to offer glad faces and happy 
thoughts, and, they shall shine like glittering treasures equal to 
the song that comes from the hills; such glad faces, happy 
thoughts and songs are incense, that comes back to the wor- 
shipper laden with * i sacred wine ; ' ' and where they are offered 
there is the Lord's table, indeed. The thunder cloud plays the 
organ and "dropping tears or rain" wash away any grief or 
sobs of pain. That is the kind of worship nature knows of and 
has practiced always and long before she saw man's face, and 
it is that kind of worship she is anxious to have us learn, and 
she tells us we cannot learn it except we be " still. ' \ In stillness 
alone Tao "takes us in the arms." 

Can you imagine what it means to be taken into the arms of 
Tao under such conditions? Would it not be glorious? Would 
it not be heaven? And yet they await us ! They can be had for 
the asking! And they cost nothing! Why tarry? Behold the 
fowls of the air ! Consider the lilies of the field ! Remember the 
sage whom Laotzse so graphically described! They all know 
about stillness and are ready to testify and to teach ! 

Why will people not be taught these simple lessons ? I will 
tell you. You have perhaps witnessed the scene that is enacted 
every time the wild geese come down from the North on account 
of the intense cold. When the tame geese in the farmer's yard 
hear the honk ! honk ! up in the air, they spread their short wings 
and run from one end of the yard to the other and make a tre- 
mendous noise — and that is all. They do not rise upon the wing 
and fly away! They have forgotten to fly! And so it is with 
people. They have forgotten to fly! They may well hear the 
speakers' call and the song of the spirit and their blood may 
throb quicker and they wish loudly — but they have forgotten to 
fly, and come no further than the door of the meeting place. 



NATURE-WORSHIP 131 

When outside and on the street they forget to rise to heaven fol- 
lowing the honk ! honk ! 

Let us pray for stillness ! When the heart throbs violently 
and restlessly! When fortune's wheel whirls fastest, let us pray 
for stillness that we may measure our soul and our longings. 
When bitterness and loss assail us, let us pray for stillness that 
we cast our anchor safely ! 

People are earthbound and fear to rise high up like the 
eagle and see the sun. As soon as they unawares have forgotten 
the earth for a moment and felt the breezes of freedom, they 
hasten to come down again for fear of falling. They are really 
" souls in prison" and oh! the pity of it; they prefer the narrow 
streets to the Open, because they do not know that they are in 
prison. They have been born there. Their parents were pris- 
oners before them. 

If that young Greek, and those girl loves of Indra, and that 
poor copyist, had sought nature in the open, not in a temple 
service ; on the mountain top and not in the land of the Uttera- 
kurus; near running brooks and in green fields and not in a 
counting room, then they would have learned what stillness is, 
and, they would have realized stillness in silence and solitude 
and been saved, because "Tao would have taken their spirit in 
the arms. ' ' 

Whittier's next stanza was : 

And prayer is made, and prayer is given, 

By all things near and far; 
The Ocean looketh up to the heaven, 

And mirrors every star. 

Yes, indeed "prayer is made ;" the mute appeal in the dog's- 
and horse's eye is a prayer, that is both a petition and a groan 
for relief. Who is so dumb and stupid that they never could 
imagine the golden bridge which the moon throws across the 
ocean is "prayer given" or prayer answered? 

When the poet next sings about ocean 's waves kneeling upon 
the strand like a priesthood of the sea and how they bring their 
gifts of pearl, he happily personifies what can be seen in cathe- 
drals abroad, in Mohammedan mosques and often in the seclu- 
sions of a cell, when a human soul feels the need of crawling 
upon the knees, and thus finds relief for an inner burden. Of 
course those of you who have never felt the need of such an art, 



132 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

cannot comprehend the poet's imagery. Whittier must have had 
that experience; else he could never have penned the next two 
lines 

"And all the listening hills of earth 
Take up the song they sing." 

These lines mean not merely that echo answers back the 
song of the sea. They express a literal fact. If you ever shall 
have an opportunity to stand on the ocean strand with miles of 
desolation around you, you will learn to understand how sea and 
land embrace and kiss. Nowhere else and never at any other 
time. At such a time you will learn what Nature-Mysticism is 
and you will learn how to pray. I know of one place where you 
can hear such a solemn duet sung by the ocean and the shore. 
Where the North Sea howls upon the coast of Jutland (Den- 
mark) on those places where the Vikings of old landed when 
they came down from Iceland and the other isles; that is the 
place. 

Only a devoted and worshipful soul like Whittier could ever 
discover that the earth offers incense and that the incense- 
burner is the ' ' folded leaf and dewy cup, ' ' or compare the early 
morning mist, that of summer morning at 4 o 'clock, to the wings 
of prayer, or see "sunset's purple air" as altar curtains, and 
so forth throughout the poem. 

Only persons who have spent nights and days, mornings and 
evenings in the mountains, or in great forests or deserts, or on 
the shores of the ocean, can catch the note of stillness in the 
transcendence of these things, but I think all ought to be able 
to see that in all this there is a condition of blessing, that there 
is no conflict, no inner rupture, no loss of peace, no sin ; but on 
the other hand sublime teachings for us on how to do, and what 
the Inner Life is. 

Let me tell you about something I want you to do in summer 
on an early morning. Get up early enough to have time to rub the 
sleep out of your eyes, and get out to meet the sun ; but you must 
be on the hill on the edge of the woods before the sun gets there ! 
If you do, you will be able to attend a morning service such as 
the small birds conduct it, and you shall never forget your ex- 
perience and perhaps discover what religion really is. At dawn, 
the birds in certain localities all seem to be touched by the solem- 
nity of the hour. No man knows why or how. It seems to me 
mother nature is the bandmaster and director of the music. 



NATURE, THE GREAT MOTHER 133 

Though each bird sings his own song, the myriad voices blend in 
one concordant whole. All the birds seem to be actuated by 
unity of purpose with the feeling of some larger consciousness. 
Beginning with the desultory calls of woodpeckers, the song- 
sparrows, robins and catbirds all start in, and in some way the 
thrushes give the symphony a devotional character. The 
thrushes are always solemn; a tone of invocation predominates. 
The Veery or Wilson thrush is truly called the high-priest of 
the mystic lore of the forest. When the twilight is no more, the 
warblers take up the strain and express contentment of mind 
and heart. With them ends the morning service, and the bobo- 
links, these little light hearted rascals begin to bubble over with 
gong. Their merry jingles come up from the meadows, bubbling, 
rippling and lyric altogether. All this is not poetic fancy of 
mine. Lovers of nature and life in the open will verify my words 
and experience. 

Whence this accord? Nature, the great mother, falls in with 
all these voices and leads the song, and therefore there is in it 
a personal address I Go into solitude and you shall hear it. 
There is reconciliation in it. There is religion in it. Nature 
will teach you what prayer is and how to sing such as lips never 
sing, but such as the heart does it, when it offers its own warm 
blood as the sacrifice and lays itself upon the altar as an offering. 

Some day I trust you may realize that Nature is Tao and 
Teh, and that Whittier in this poem has helped to show what 
stillness is, in which * ' Tao takes our spirit in the arms. ' ' If you 
are at all familiar with any of these attitudes just described, 
you must sometime or other have realized the solemnity and 
reverence shown everywhere where nature worships, and she 
worships everywhere. Come out again! Come out on an early 
morning to hear the prelude to the day's symphony as it is sung 
in the woods. I have heard it many times, and I assure you, you 
shall spend a happy day, if you do. All the mud that sticks to 
your shoes will fall off ; you will not bring it home again. 

As regards stillness, the subject of this chapter, you shall 
understand that it does not merely mean cessation of sound or 
noise, as with us men, but that stillness to nature means jubila- 
tion and an intensity of purpose of which men know notning. 
To us such words as simplicity and stillness are merely negative 
conceptions. To nature they are positive and realities, the very 
condition the sage wishes to bring men to. 

I now come to the balance left of that sentence in which 



134 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

"stillness" has played so prominent a part. The balance of the 
sentence relates to Tao taking ns in the arms. This idea of 
being taken into the arms of Tao I now shall try to illustrate. 

Yon are all familiar with a number of ceremonial actions, 
actions which you yourself use as expressions of your feeling, 
though in all probability you are not consciously aware of their 
import, or why you do them. Among such ceremonies implying 
spiritual actions the most common are those of "shaking 
hands," and, other actions of the hand, such as embracing 
friends and relatives ; kissing ; taking ofT the hat. Such actions 
represent the sympathetic system in our constitution, and they 
express our feelings towards the neighbor. This sympathetic 
system in our constitution seems to be gradually sinking into the 
sea of our personal life. All the actions I have referred to, and 
numerous others of like nature, no more play the part in our 
life they used to. In the cycle anteceding the one in which we 
now live, they were exceedingly important and were the terms in 
which men's feelings expressed themselves, and they were in- 
valuable. They have survived in some weak form or other here 
and there even in our own cycle, and, they still are the essential 
characteristics of those people who are the remnants of earlier 
prehistoric races, such as among the people we call wild and 
uncivilized. These sympathetic feelings are now sinking into the 
sea or gradually receding in our personality, giving place for 
other systems and other terms ; such as for instance, that system 
called thought-form which came in a cycle characteristic at the 
time Laotze wrote his book. I shall not speak any further about 
the loss of the sympathetic system, that must wait till another 
time. Now, I must speak of the thought-form system that arose 
at the beginning of our cycle. 

This new system, which I for convenience have called 
thought-form, is not unfamiliar to you. I will show you. I will 
suppose you to be a lover and suddenly to have been struck 
profoundly by another person and realized what "sameness" is, 
or, in other words, "love," for love is essentially a feeling of 
sameness, of identity with the beloved. In this feeling of same- 
ness, this familiarity you and the beloved have met and deter- 
mined not to be separated again and both found the essential 
peace which only such a union gives. No more seems necessary. 

Up to this point it was the sympathetic system that acted. 
But now the other system steps in. It is a psychological fact 
that neither of the two rest in those feelings, in those inner as- 



TAO 135 

surances. Both begin very soon to inquire into each other's life 
and ideas, not mention making inquiries about wealth, or fame, 
or history. These things do not concern my subject. They begin 
to inquire, because the thought-form system in them clamors to 
"see" the beloved, to understand the beloved, to get a picture 
according to mind ; it demands a form rather than an emotion as 
an expression and will not rest without it. Examine yourself 
and you shall see the correctness of what I say. All lovers do 
that, except Jack and Jill; they remain in the sympathetic sys- 
tem. Every intelligent mind is restless before its object, till it, 
in a "corresponding" way, has masticated and swallowed and 
assimilated it. First, after that, does it possess the object as an 
object of consciousness, and this possessing the object in con- 
sciousness is the demand of every intelligent mind, the very 
characteristic of intelligence and the demand of the thought- 
form system. To use Qvang-tze's phrase we "take the object in 
our arms. ' ' 

You readily see the close correspondence between the sym- 
pathetic system's action of taking a friend or relative or the be- 
loved "in the arms" and the same action under the form of un- 
derstanding by the thought-form system: Both systems act in 
a similar direction and on parallel lines, but their methods are 
very different. 

This action of the two systems on our relative plane of 
life illustrates what Tao does on the universal plane of life. And 
as we human beings on our plane come into union, so Tao on the 
universal plane brings us into union with itself. 

Tao "takes us in the arms" when we have come into still- 
ness or, which is the same, when sameness or identity has be- 
come a fact. 

You can now see the meaning of that sentence of Qvang-tze 
and you can readily understand that we are perfect when that 
happens. I am now done with that sentence I started out with. 



TAO 
IX. 

LOOK at the diagram (No. 1), it is the motto for this chap- 
ter. It is a picture of Tao. 
I shall use the word Tao very little in this chapter, yet, 
not only the frame of it is of Tao but its content is about 
Tao ; yea, I dare almost say it is Tao. The diagram will explain 
itself as I proceed with my expositions; I say expositions, be- 
cause I shall really give two ; the first one is a short one, consist- 
ing of four paragraphs, and, the second somewhat longer going 
over the same ground as these four paragraphs though very 
differently. The first exposition runs as follows : 





Diagram No. 1. 




ex ou 




up ou 


(out of which) 




(by which) 


Substance 




Active Energy 


Faust 




The Key 



The 


child 


Tao 


We our 


Imm 


anent 




Intell 


pow 


er 







selves 



lgence 



The Mothers 
Immanent Power 

(through which) 
di ou 



Helen 
Effect or 
Transcendental form 
(with reference to which) 
pros ou 



TAO 137 

(I) Observe the child. It knows what it is to be in the con- 
dition of having the thumb in the month, but it does not know 
what thumb means nor what mouth means. It has not the ability 
to substitute the technical terms thumb and mouth for the con- 
dition which I call "thumb-in-mouth" condition. The child 
knows quality, but not the name for quality. 

(II) Again; we all as children know something shining 
brightly, now, as in daytime all around us, then in the darkness 
as coming from certain objects ; how we do not know. We may 
be taught to call it light and we may call it so, and most of us 
continue so throughout our whole life, never even suspecting 
that we talk merely like parrots, not knowing what we say. How 
many know why brightness is called light and how that concep- 
tion arose? This condition is sense-consciousness; it is not 
intelligence. Intelligence does not arise till we in our inner 
man have found for ourselves a solution and a term for that 
brightness we have been taught to call light. As an adjunct to 
this, the second point, I will have you realize how much injury 
we receive by being educated, as we call it. We learn certain 
results attained by others and that, of course, is useful, but it 
kills all originality; it kills the initiative in most people. In the 
schools we are not even warned of our danger. 

(III) Again; cotton cannot weave itself into cloth. Neither 
can sensations transform themselves into thoughts. Machinery 
weaves cotton into cloth. The thought-form system transforms 
sensations into intelligence. 

(IV) Again; our value as human beings depends first of all 
upon intelligence. Where there is no intelligence there is no 
humanity, properly speaking. 

These four points are really a chapter in themselves, and 
stand independent of the sequence of this chapter, but they are 
nevertheless the fundamental ideas that lie at the bottom of it 
and are four sides of Tao, and that will appear by and by. 

Without exaggerating much, I can say that this diagram 
(No. 1) is a diagram of the motions of your life and mine, not 
only in the four large divisions of life from birth to death, but 
it also represents the stages and the driving forces of our think- 
ing and acting. Our life swings around the four points, whether 
we will or not, and, the diagram may be compared to a clock ; a 
clock that has a voice. If you listen closely you hear in the 
" tick-tack' ' a song of " evermore' ' — "nevermore." 

With the triad added, this tetrad becomes our templum. 



138 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

You know what that word means ; I explained it in two forgone 
chapters. Yes ! this diagram is the ground plan of our templum 
and with the triad added it reaches into the heavens. Being of 
so much signification, I may well urge you to pay much atten- 
tion to it. The Innermost Square is characterized by four 
terms : the child — we ourselves — inherent power — intelligence. 
These terms express the four stages of our spiritual evolution. 
I need not describe them. It happens that Aristotle has already 
done it. The small Greek words on the corners corresponding 
to the terms I already have mentioned, explain them. The ex ou 
is the "out of which' ' the evolution starts. The up ou is the 
"by which " it starts. The di ou is the "through which' ' it is 
accomplished, and the pros owl is the final end "with reference to 
which' ' the whole evolution has taken place. 

The diagram will be of great practical value to those who 
wish to see the workings of their own psychological movements. 
All ought to wish to see that, because intelligence wishes to see 
itself and you can never be sure of your motives or your fate on 
the Path unless you follow yourself step by step through these 
four. This is the first exposition. Now for the second. 

Since the beginning of our present cycle, there is in human 
consciousness, in most people, an unconscious and in the few a 
conscious demand to understand, or let me say to absorb under- 
standingly the object. After we have grasped it with the feel- 
ings, we crave to draw it into ourselves ; we crave to possess the 
object. To grasp the object by the feelings is true action, but 
the craving is a pervertion of an inherent and otherwise cor- 
rect longing for an identification with the object. So long we 
do not in understanding grasp an object, so long it remains out- 
side of us and is of no use to us ; nor do we possess it, which we 
wish to and have a right to. In the preceding chapter I have 
already stated that if we do not attain such a grasp of the object, 
we miss the opportunity of the present cycle and live for noth- 
ing. It is in the understanding that I possess an object; in no 
other way do I possess it. A flower in my buttonhole, or, a 
house, even if my legal title is perfect, is not in my possession. 
They are no part of me and remain no part of me, no matter 
what I do. But if I understand them in their principles, they 
and I become one, and, in that oneness, I become a ruler. This 
identification and blending is a law of Nature. Nature is 
a system of nuptials. Not only the poet (Shelley) knows that, 
but science and common observation shows it. 



THE TEMPLE 139 

"The fountains mingle with the river 

And the rivers with the ocean, 
The winds of heaven mix forever 

With a sweet emotion; 
Nothing in the world is single; 

All things, by a law divine 
In one spirit meet and mingle — " 

Why not Thou with the Beloved? 
"See, the mountains kiss high heaven, 

And the waves clasp one another ; 
No sister-flower would be forgiven 

If it disdained its brother ; 
And the sunlight clasps the earth 

And the moonbeams kiss the sea; 
What are all these kissings worth — 

If Thou kiss not the Beloved !" 

This is Shelley's rendering of the law, and also his state- 
ment why this mingling takes place — it is for a sign and symbol, 
that we kiss the Divine, or come to the great mystic object: 
union with God. 

In the Vedanta it is said that Nature is like a dancer, who 
comes upon the scene to charm the spectator and to be carried 
home. The meaning is of course this, that we shall learn the 
higher lesson of love, which is that between the soul and the 
Deity. "All things work together for good to them that love 
God," is the old gospel truth. I shall not stop further and show 
you the details in Nature's life. They are easy enough to see 
if you will but look. Everywhere there is Beauty, and the word 
Beauty correctly translated means "coming together" and noth- 
ing else. But it is not merely in nature that this happens. In 
your own life you have had experiences that are of the same 
kind. You know how often you have heard the same wisdom 
taught, for instance, set forth by lecturers or friends, and you 
could never catch on to it, apprehend it or re-express it in your 
own terms, till some day, all of a sudden, a happy word or 
phrase or expression at once made everything clear and you 
burst out, Ah! now I see it! In such an experience the law of 
these psychological matters is to be seen. In the novels you 
read, if they are skillfully written, there are many psycholog- 
ical moments in which the hero or heroine argue for or against 
their love or other actions. Such argumentations also show 



140 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

the method according to which the thoughtform system works. 
They always lead to a climax in which the hero or heroine 
"sees," "understands," or "realizes," and, the trend of the 
whole story takes a new and decided turn. 

Human consciousness, where it is awakened, is not satisfied 
with a mere view of an object, a view obtained by merely see- 
ing the object. If we were satisfied, our consciousness would be 
worth no more than the stare of a cow upon a red-painted door. 
To know about a thing is not the same as to know it. You may 
know a great deal about Europe, without knowing it. You may 
know about Theosophy without being a theosophist. No bliss 
is bliss unless realized intelligently; no thought is thought to us 
unless translated into mental substance. In Nature, no sweets 
will be absorbed as health, unless the system needs them ; other- 
wise they are poison. Nor is human consciousness satisfied 
by the mere excited feelings or emotions that may pass over 
it. What are emotions worth if they are not translated into in- 
telligible words? Surely no more than opium dreams, or more 
than the gusts of wind that have struck us and which we have 
forgotten and perhaps not even noticed. Human conscious- 
ness to be worth its name, demands an understanding, an intel- 
lectual possession, or a mental transmutation of that which the 
senses experience. 

I have much against the way life is lived in our own day and 
in the present cycle, and, have several times in the foregone 
chapters expressed myself very strongly in condemnation of 
the authorities who are responsible for the degradation of the 
age. I shall not add anything at present, but say, that the only 
point which saves this age is that it still contains those who pro- 
fess that all philosophical, moral and aesthetic schools, ought to 
be keyed in the note of the thought-form system, or set in the 
principles of order, form, rule, number, method, and so forth. 
Those few balance that other mass, or those who let the sym- 
pathetic system run wild, allowing it to destroy them in their 
fury and burn them in its unquenchable fire. 

I referred to the senses. The senses are the windows of the 
soul, not its governors. The soul looks out through these win- 
dows and the sun looks in with the whole company of objective 
figures, movements and impulses. When all these forms enter 
through the window, our image-making power, one aspect of the 
thought-form system, gives them body or turns them into shapes, 
or, as Shakespeare in a fine line has it, "gives to airy nothing a 



CONSCIOUSNESS 141 

local habitation and a name." They enter as "airy nothings' y 
but by ns they receive "a local habitation and a name," or, in 
other words, they become something substantial in onr minds, 
and that is all the reality they have or ever will get, as far as 
we are concerned. But this substantiality they thus receive is 
our salvation or redemption or understanding of them, and, if 
they did not receive that substantial form they would be of no 
use, nor become a part of us, and would affect us no more than 
a wind that sweeps over our heads. We would know through 
our feelings or our sense consciousness that something had hap- 
pened, but no more; and knowing no more, we should derive 
no mental, moral, or spiritual benefit from them. 

Dryden speaks of his work when it was only a confused 
mass of thoughts, tumbling over one another in the dark, when 
the fancy (he meant image-making power) was yet in its first 
work, moving the sleeping images of things towards the light, 
there to be distinguished (that is, separated), and then either to 
be chosen or rejected by the judgment, namely, reason. This, 
which Dryden here calls the " sleeping images of things," are 
those first or original shapes which our image-making power 
gives all our sense perceptions, and they are the ones we have 
to deal with and out of which comes complete consciousness. You 
must notice this point, that they get their sustenance from our 
minds or personality and have no other. The process is that 
of the seed laid in the soil. It grows and develops by means of 
the substance it derives from the soil, but is and remains itself. 
The growth or the shape acquired is the middle link, the child, 
if I may so call it, born of the potentiality of the seed and the 
soil. Without it, no union, no at-one-ment. This child, as I call 
it, is the thought-form manifesting itself. You see not only how 
the thought-form manifests itself, but also its tremendous im- 
portance in what we call life. The personality in which this 
has taken place is worthy to be called intelligent ; and it is on the 
Path. Some people say that now the christ-child has been born 
in them. Meister Eckardt said so, too. 

I will now attempt to illustrate this process and I shall vary 
the nature of illustrations. In the foregone chapters, I have 
drawn my illustrations from our moral consciousness and some- 
times from our sense consciousness. Now I will take them from 
our aesthetic consciousness and lead into it by one illustration 
from our intellectual consciousness. 

It is the inherent demand to bear "the child," a demand 



142 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

for transmutation, for reconciliation, for personal appropria- 
tion, that in the philosopher demands a " notion' ' or an idea or a 
word which will contain the object in a mental form, and thus give 
him a mental equivalent for the outside object. When he finds 
or conceives this notion, or idea, then he is free of the object, 
and the object is subject to him, and he controls it in such a way 
that it practically is taken out of the universe as an independent 
power and becomes his and his only. You have heard of magi- 
cians possessing words which enabled them to perform wonders. 
Such words are acquired by the process I mentioned. They are 
not gotten by mere transmission from a master to a pupil. They 
can only be acquired by the magian himself, by the magian him- 
self passing through the alchemical process. 

Of course, I cannot here, even if I were able to do it, explain 
the alchemical process, but, as I at present am dealing with our 
aesthetic consciousness, I can picture it to some extent, and there- 
by perhaps cause you to "work," as it is called alchemically, 
or to enter the Path, as they say in the Orient and among mys- 
tics. I will take a scene from Goethe's Faust. It is found in 
the second part, first act. Faust demands that Mephistopheles 
shall produce Helen, the most beautiful, but also the most bane- 
ful Greek woman. Mephistopheles objects, but Faust persists. 
Mephistopheles says: 

1 ' The Heathen-folk I am glad to let alone ; 
In their own hell is cast their lot, 

but admits there are ways and, forced by Faust, he declares 

"Loth am I higher secrets to unfold. 
In solitude, where reigns nor space nor time, 
Are goddesses enthroned from early ages — 
— 'Tis hard to speak of beings so sublime — 
— The Mothers are they. — " 

At this word, the "mothers," Faust shrinks back terrified, 
but recovers under Mephistopheles' sarcasm and admits he is 
in fear and trembling. Mephistopheles explains that these god- 
desses are unknown to men, and unwillingly named by him. He 
also tells Faust, who demands to know the way to them, that 
there is 

' • No way ; to the untrodden none, — 
No locks nor bolts — 
Only solitudes — " 



143 

Do you know what the void is? Faust, as usual, stops 
Mephisto 's dilatory talk and persists in his demands. Finally 
Mephisto hands Faust a little key which, he tells him : 

"Follow! thee to the Mothers it will lead!" 

Again upon hearing the word "the Mothers" Faust shud- 
ders, but soon springs up in ecstacy, because now he has found 
the word, the liberating power, the key. 

' ' Good ! Firmly I grasp it. New strength is mine ; 

My breast expands ! Now on to accomplish my great pur- 
pose;" And Mephistopheles approvingly cries out: 

" — So, that is right! 
The key cleaves to thee ; it follows like a slave ! ' ' 

I need not continue Goethe's drama any further. Faust 
has the key and Helen is brought forth. Now, what is it that 
takes place f It is this, that Faust immediately grasps the situa- 
tion in that moment he discovers what the key can do. The key 
to him is the same as the "notion" to the philosopher. At that 
moment he rises as master ; all confusion is blown away, and no 
longer overwhelmed with fears or tremblings or the power of the 
situation, he exclaims: 

' ' Good ! Firmly I grasp it. New strength is mine 

My breast expands! Now on to accomplish my great pur- 
pose;" and Mephisto also knows that Faust has "seen," has 
"understood," has "realized," or in other words, has under- 
gone that psychological transmutation I have explained in de- 
tails. Let Faust represent the philosopher, and my illustration 
will point to one of the methods of the thought-form system by 
which the reflective mind attains control over itself, or awakens 
to the value of life and its means of salvation. 

At present I shall say nothing further about Faust and 
Helen. The two other powers are far more interesting. ' * The 
key" is of course "the active energy" in existence, and in these 
chapters called the thought-form system. I have chosen that 
term, I have said before, because it best expresses the Tao of 
the Tao-Teh-King, such as it slowly is coming to the front in 
these chapters and as you shall see it fully when we come to the 
end of them. I can give you several equivalents for it in Occi- 
dental philosophy, but I shall not use them myself because they 
are to me no more than suggestions and not full expressions. It 



144 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

was the Greek mind that first began to search for an abstract and 
technical term and found it in Anaxagoras. He named it Nous 
and meant thereby the ordering principle, that principle which 
as active energy gave unity, system and movement to the uni- 
verse. Pythagoras later called it Number, a wonderful term, 
for law and order. Nous with Plato became an attribute of 
deity, and phychologically also the highest form of mental in- 
sight, or reason, as we are wont to call it. All knowledge and 
insight depends upon nous. This is sufficient for the present. 
It may help you somewhat. The later senses given to nous will 
appear in due time. At present I call it the thought-form, 
and I speak of the thought-form system when I say "the key" 
that Faust got, and which brought him to the mothers and un- 
locked the power that could lift Helen into the world. Next 
come the mothers before us and crave our attention. 

The mothers are modern names for nature-goddesses 
among the Pelasgians, the prehistoric races of large parts of 
southern Europe. The Greek and Eoman goddesses Perse- 
phone and Demeter were survivals of these nature-goddesses. 
The mothers as conceived by the Pelasgians were identical with 
the tripod upon which and inside of which they lived. They 
were the types of all conceptions, causes and energies; hence 
Faust must go to them. All of which, of course, means that he 
must descend to the core of the universe, to the "Immanent 
Power," through which alone things happen in our sphere of 
existence. He attained his object by "the key," or the "active 
energy. ' ' 

All of this is, of course, symbolism and life-truth, and can 
be studied in various ways. At present, I present it all as the 
thought-form system and have represented it in the diagram. 
If you follow the inscriptions and this Faustic scene, you will 
see how they explain each other. I shall not dwell much upon 
the diagram now. It will receive many more inscriptions as I 
refer to it in the future, when we shall see Tao under all four 
forms. 

In this scene of Goethe's we have the four elements, the 
quaternary represented by Faust, the Key, the Mothers, Helen. 
Mephisto is the deus ex machina and does not belong to either 
quaternary or ternary. For the present study of Taoism, the 
Tetrad, the 4, is the most important, and among its many names, 
I will mention the most interesting in the connection with the 
subject in hand. Four is called "the fountain of nature," and 



145 

many peoples of antiquity had a name for Deity consisting of 
four letters ; hence I surmise, for that reason, four was called 
"the keybearer." Four also is the constituent of a virtuous life, 
the four virtues being Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude and 
Justice. But the most interesting at present is this, that Taoism 
distinguishes Tao under four aspects, four aspects which coin- 
cide with the four causes of Aristotle and the four forms already 
presented. 

What is Tao 1 The answer, I shall give, I take from an emin- 
ent Taoist, Huai-Nan-Tzu. "What is Tao?" he asked; and an- 
swers: (I) "It is that which supports heaven and covers the 
earth; it has no boundaries, no limits; its heights cannot be 
measured, nor its depths fathomed; it enfolds the entire uni- 
verse in its embrace, and confers visibility upon that which of 
itself is formless. 

(II) It is so tenuous and subtle that it pervades every- 
thing just as water pervades mire. It is by Tao that moun- 
tains are high and abysses deep; that beasts walk and birds 
fly; that the sun and moon are bright, and the stars revolve in 
their courses. 

(III) When the Spring winds blow, the sweet rain falls; 
and all things live and grow. The feathered ones brood and 
hatch, the furry ones breed and bear ; plants and trees put forth 
all their glorious exuberance of foliage; birds lay eggs, and 
animals produce their young. 

(IV) No action is visible outwardly, and yet the work is 
completed. Shadowy and indistinct, it has no form. Indistinct 
and shadowy, its resources have no end. Hidden and obscure, it 
reinforces all things out of formlessness. Penetrating and per- 
meating everything, it never acts in vain." 

Now what is this in our language of the Occident but Nature, 
the creating and forming principle of existence and also the sub- 
stance of all we know. It is the natura naturans of the philos- 
ophers as well as the natura naturata, the cause of all phe- 
nomena as well as the phenomena themselves. 

Tao, then, is Nature. That is the first translation of the 
word; others will follow. If we analyze the description given, 
we see how the author begins by (1) the ideas of substance; (2) 
then he defines Tao as immanent power; (3) then as active 
energy; and finally he sums up by (4) transcendental terms 
and definitions. In other words, he begins in the tangible and 
ends in the intangible, and, that is so beautiful, because that is 



146 THE IN NEE LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

the order of regeneration both intellectually and volitionally. 
It is Nature 's way of training us. 

(I) Laotzse, the master, like the disciple, speaks of Tao 
under four forms, and speaks of it as being from before the 
beginning, immaterial, and a primordial mystery. It is every- 
where, and can be on the right side at the same time as it is on 
the left. In other words it is substance. 

(II) Laotzse also speaks of Tao as manifested or individu- 
alized : in man, for instance, as reason or immediate knowledge. 
This is Tao as immanent power. 

(III) Laotzse finally says: " These two are one and the 
same and differ only in name/' and this " sameness" leads to 
a new signification of Tao, namely, as "the abyss of abysses/ ' 

(IV) But Laotzse also emphasizes again and again that 
Tao cannot be comprehended, or, in other words, that Tao is 
transcendental. Here, then, are four important aspects of Tao 
and I must try to elucidate them, but not at present. 

Thus far I have been dealing with the thought-form system 
mainly as it manifests itself in the philosophical mind or in the 
form of our mind which reasons. I said before I would do that, 
introductory to some forms of our aesthetic consciousness under 
the influence of the thought-form system. I now come to these 
aesthetic forms, and will first speak of the musical mind. 

A musician builds a tune-architecture, which is a visible, 
rather than an audible form, and this form overcomes the cor- 
poreal. That form scintilates with light ; light which never was 
on sea nor land. I said visible, not audible form, because music, 
of all arts, is the most powerful image-maker. True enough, 
we hear it in its first appearance, but it stays with us as a visible 
image, because it is an image. And ever afterwards its appear- 
ance is before the inner eye as a light, a form without extention ; 
or to put it in another way, it is ever afterwards spirit appear- 
ing as spirit, or spirit focussing itself. It is therefore that I call 
it a visual image rather than an audible image. Of course, I 
am speaking of music in its real or occult sense. I mean by 
Music: the inner Word, or Logos. I mean sounds which, 
when they enter us, transform themselves to intelligence, to 
mind. Music is mind speaking to mind, or cosmic emotions 
vibrating in unison with subjective emotions, and as such, re- 
flecting themselves in the musician. Music is not the same as 
harmonious sounds, however charming. Music is the speaking 
voice of the Divine. It is a message to the world coming through 



music 147 

the musician. All this is of course of transcendental nature, 
something that takes place in the sublime solitude of genius and 
in that stillness spoken of before. The world outside of solitude 
and stillness hears a manifoldness of sounds, perhaps in geom- 
etric or arithmetric order, and it trembles at times into ecstacy 
and feels the transcendental has come very near. But the out- 
side cannot retain the musical images ; it cannot translate them 
into rational terms. And music is not music unless such transla- 
tions take place. Only genius in stillness can do it. One pro- 
phet understands another; one mystic perceives immediately 
the inspiration of another. As I already have said, all this takes 
place in the sublime solitude of genius, in stillness. And when it 
does take place, Tao has taken the spirit in its arms. If we 
wish to hear the fabled music of the spheres, and wish to rise 
to the goddess of beauty that keeps the immortally tuned harp, 
we must retire to the solitude or quiet places of our own souls, 
there, and, there only, do we find the universe reflected and see 
those tune-architectures which stand in that sea, whence sprang 
the Anadyomene. The wave-born Venus Anadyomene is not 
wantonness, she is Music, a celestial love-song. 

In the first chapter I stated that "solitude means that the 
ego is alone with itself.' ' That solitude is the plane of "the 
twice-bom;" all of which means that the noisy and clamorous 
sense-consciousness has been subdued and that the thought- 
form system rules. Such are the conditions necessary for the 
birth of music and for the birth of the musician, or, as applied 
to ourselves, for the opening and energizing of the musical con- 
sciousness of ours. 

The sculptor reduces his perceptions to a form, let me say a 
human one, and this form or image he builds up by lines, in such 
a way that his image represents to him the true or real man, and, 
moreover, in such a way that this image fills him with the power 
of the ideal world. And he is both the conception and the birth. 
His image becomes himself, and, unless he becomes that image, 
the eternal form is not found. 

This image, or the finished statue, is to him his reconciliation 
or at-one-ing of an outer objective world and his own conscious- 
ness. In it, the dualism is at-one-ed and he calls his art higher 
than the nature which it represents. This image or finished 
statue makes him feel that he is a master-creator, and it lifts 
him beyond himself. In his own work he sees the immortal 
power that worked in him and by him and for him. And if he has 



148 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

reverence, he does not call the work his own in any special sense. 
I do not think that Michael Angelo for a moment thought of ' ' the 
Aurora" on the tomb of Lorenzo de Medici, as his in a special 
sense. I do not think that the artist who caused the daemonic 
expression on the Venus of Milo, dreamt of it as his. The sculp- 
tor 's work is the seal of his election, and that is his pay. He lies 
in the arms of Tao. He has tasted the waters of Pythagoras' 
well at Crotona, and is no longer at war with himself and his sur- 
roundings. He is one of the immortals. And that is enough. 
This is done in solitude, in stillness. In solitude he and the ob- 
jective were married, and the child of that marriage is himself. 
Here again I quote what I said in the first chapter about soli- 
tude, that it strips us naked of all the incidental and trivial and 
burns these up. In solitude none of the five senses work ; they are 
merely doors by which the soul passes in and out ; in to itself and 
out to Nature. 

How is the poet born and how does he lie in the arms of 
Tao? As for the poet: "He must come to us, another Numa, ra- 
diant and inspired from the kisses of Egeria." Egeria was a 
nymph, and nymphs do not live in market places ; they are only 
found on solitary woodpaths and secluded places in Nature's se- 
cret haunts, in stillness. There the poet retires, when he seeks the 
word that shall overcome and slay the hydra of confusion and 
discord. The word, namely, which for him is the thought-form 
that can supplant the passion, which thrilled him. The word, in 
which he and the eternal become one. Whether the storm rushes 
into the woods like Boreas, or breathes like gentle Zephyrs, he 
perceives and lays hold of the rhythmic swing which vibrates so- 
lutions and conceptions to his genius. And in that moment he is 
free, and master over those very vibrations. The poet is like the 
musician. They both formulate sentient life, and thereby attain 
their freedom, but the poet is not satisfied by merely rousing 
sentiment, he wants to portray it, too. Hence he endeavors to 
translate his passion into thought, and to awaken the image- 
making power that he may fasten his images in that power. He 
does this by language. His language is best or only learned in 
Nature's solitudes, in the stillness of Tao. In fact, the poet is the 
only one who speaks an original language; all others are his 
imitators. The poet is the one who translates Mother-Nature's 
sentiments into set terms for the rest of us, and thereby he be- 
comes an interpreter for us and gives us that insight, that under- 
standing we longed for but were not able to give ourselves. He 



THE POET 149 

can do so because Egeria, the nymph, kisses him, and Hybla, 
another nymph, bathes him in the ethereal dews. Of Nature's 
original stillness, the poet was the first prophet, the first re- 
vealer, the one who set man free by giving him the word. 

Yon are all familiar rdtln the story of the New Testament, I 
suppose, and have all probably read the life of Jesus, told in it. 
You will agree with me, that it is a most marvellous and beauti- 
ful tale. Indeed, that story will as Eenan prophetically saw it, be 
told throughout all ages and never grow stale or lose its charm. 

You have perhaps also discovered that unwritten poem of 
the Christ, which vibrates between the lines and trembles in the 
accords of the life of Jesus, as it is played upon New Testament 
strings. It is the mystic life, the life of immaculate conception. 
It is a form of the Inner Life told in the terms of a living man, 
and thereby giving us that understanding I spoke of, which we 
long for in order to get a tangible symbol, like the idea, which the 
philosopher conceived ; or the accord that composes itself in the 
heart of the musician, or the word that placed itself upon the 
poet's tongue. It is the divine life, the Inner Life, as it was con- 
ceived in the soul of Mary. It is that life which is born in soli- 
tude, through Mary, not by Mary. It is the life that eternally 
was with the Father and which comes into the world, but the 
world sees it not. This mystic story interwoven with the gospel 
story is the " eternal gospel" of which older mystics — such as, 
for instance, Joachim of Flores — speak much. It is the life of 
' ' the indwelling Christ ' ' in ' ' the twice born. " It is the life that 
makes Jesus a master mystic. It is the life of which Jesus testi- 
fied, that it would be lived, when men no longer worshipped in 
Jerusalem; it is that life which Jesus refers to when he says "I 
am the truth, the way and the life, ' * and, when he declared that 
no one comes to the Father except by him. Need I say that that 
life is the life of re-conciliation and that it is learned in solitude ? 
It is a life in the arms of Tao. 

Jesus, the poets, the musicians, the sculptors and the other 
artists take us into the white light of life's flame; but the relig- 
ionist, the professional, the priest, plunges into the abyss of the 
red and terrible fire that burns in the core of every flame. In in- 
tense passion and fanatic self-destructiveness, he seeks destruc- 
tion as a solution of life's dualism. Sacrifice to him is reconcilia- 
tion. Sacrifice is his cry! Immolation is the means; he teaches, 
not of redemption here — it is too patent that it does not come 
k ere — but yonder, in another world — he does not know where lo- 



150 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

cated, and does not care. In frenzy he has relished and in fierce- 
ness he has revelled in the blood of his sacrifice and thought he 
bought his peace. But no ! That understanding we long for, that 
verbal key we seek to Nature's mystery, is not found in the cry 
of the sacrificial victim. The sacrificial method is not the method 
of our cycle ; our thought-form system cannot use it. If the cries 
of his victims could be steered into one stream, that stream 
would be powerful enough to unhinge the universe, I think, but 
could never give freedom and the peace of Tao's arms. 

Nay, my friends, Empedokles did not find the solution he 
sought by plunging into the Etna volcano. It is only at a dis- 
tance that the volcano is beautiful; it is only on the stage that 
violence becomes dramatic; it is only in fancy that lust can be 
made luminous, and, it is only when the lightening behind the 
thunder cloud illumines its edges, that it becomes sublime. The 
actuality is terrible and carries no redemption from burdens; 
offers no reconciliation of opposites and blood cries for revenge. 
Eeconciliation is not attained by sacrifice or by blood ! It comes 
only in stillness. Over all this religiousness lies a solitude 
which is dismay, isolation, and the death, that is death. Tao's 
arm is not underneath. 

And now I come back to Shelley's poem quoted in the begin- 
ning of this chapter : " What are all these kissings worth — " and 
the final line "If Thou kiss not thy Beloved V 9 What are they 
worth f Are they worth-ships 1 ( weorth-scip. ) 

Tou remember what T said in a foregone chapter on worship 
and its value, its character as an expression of our union with the 
Divine. "All these kissings' ' — that of the philosopher and the 
notion — that of the musician and his visual image — that of the 
sculptor and the line — that of the poet and the passionate lan- 
guage — "all these kissings" are conquests of elemental powers 
and, to be real blessings, we lay them upon the alter of an hum- 
ble heart. They are conquests, I said. The musician can, after 
the method of Faust, use the fire-power to create, recreate and 
to dissolve worlds. The simple experiment of breaking a glass 
by a violin bow is enough to prove it. The poet, by the same 
method, becomes an embodiment of the Over-Soul, and, the sculp- 
tor touches that which ordinary man can neither see nor touch 
and he draws that etherial line which constitutes the heavenly 
mathematics. The philosopher forges a tool for all of these souls 
whereby they literally build their astral and spiritual bodies. 



THE SCULPTOR 151 

Each and all bring these powers to the worship (Weorth-scip) 
of the Supreme. 

All that which I have expressed by forms drawn from our 
aesthetic consciousness has also practical value and can by you 
be applied to will and moral consciousness. That which I have 
said is not merely entertaining thought (if it is that), it is oc- 
cult philosophy and Inner Life. No matter on what plane you 
break through — on the aesthetic or the moral — break through 
you must. The breaking through is the second birth and none 
shall live but those who are born again. 

It is not necessary that you or I should become philosophers, 
musicians, sculptors or poets, but it is necessary that the princi- 
ples which these genial souls embody should be awakened in us 
and set in activity. 



TEH 
X. 

I SHALL now speak about Teh, which, as already said in 
past chapters, is the realization of Tao, or Tao as mani- 
fested in life at large and especially by the sage. 

The Chinese sign, which spells Teh, is a double sign 
and made up of two others, which respectively mean " to go," 
" to walk," or " to pass," and " an upright heart"; in other 
words, the sign means " the walk of an upright heart," or, as 
we would say, virtue. Chinese dictionaries connect the word 
Teh with the word Tek, which means " to attain " or " to be 
able to. ' ' If this word Tek be the older word — that is, the word 
which expresses physical ability, which it probably does, then 
Teh could be construed to mean " that which we are able to do 
or which we must do." In either case the word will carry the 
sense of virtue ; in the former it will mean moral virtue, in the 
latter something physical. In both cases something to strive 
for. So much for the technical meaning of the sign and the 
word Teh. 

Inasmuch as Teh is the realization of Tao, it is necessary 
that I re-state the main quality of Tao in order to show how Teh 
is a realization. I will re-state what Tao is by a re-reading of 
Huan-Nan-Tzu's explanation, and you will recollect the fourfold 
aspect of Tao as I pointed it out before. Huan-Nan-Tzu ex- 
plains what Tao is by saying: 

(1) "It is that which supports heaven and covers the earth; 
it has no boundaries, no limits ; its heights cannot be measured, 
nor its depths fathomed; it enfolds the entire universe in its 
embrace, and confers visibility upon that which of itself is 
formless. 

(2) " It is so tenuous and subtle that it prevades every- 
thing, just as water pervades mire. It is by Tao that mountains 
are high and abysses deep ; that beasts walk and birds fly ; that 



TEH 



153 



the sun and moon are bright, and the stars revolve in their 
courses. 

(3) " When the Spring winds blow, the sweet rain falls, 
and all things live and grow. The feathered ones brood and 
hatch, the furry ones breed and bear; plants and trees put 
forth all their glorious exuberance of foliage ; birds lay eggs and 
animals produce their young; no action is visible outwardly, 
and yet the work is completed. 

(4) " Shadowy and indistinct, it has no form. Indistinct 
and shadowy, its resources have no end. Hidden and obscure, 
it reinforces all things out of formlessness. Penetrating and 
permeating everything, it never acts in vain." (Eeligious Sys- 
tems of the World, F. H. Balfour: Taoism.) 

On diagram No. 1 I have already indicated by four terms 
these four aspects of Tao. I called them (1) Substance, (2) 
Energetic Power, (3) Immanent Power, (4) The Transcen- 
dental. 

The fourfoldness of manifestation is easily seen and is, 
moreover, indicated in diagram No. 1, given with last chapter 
and illustrated by me in various ways. The same fourfoldness 
is seen in Teh, but instead of giving you numerous quotations 
gathered here and there from the Tao-Teh-King, I have sum- 
marized them in the terms: Life, Love, Light, "Will, inscribed 



Im Ganzen, 


Guten, 


The Whole 


The Good 


ife 


Love 




Light 

The Beautiful 

Schonen 



* Will 
Determinate work 
Resolut zu leben (Goethe) 



DIAGRAM NO. 2. 



154 THE IN NEK LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

on the square, (Diagram No. 2.) These four terms I shall use 
to describe the fourfold manifestation of Teh. 

I have also written on this diagram (No. 2) a German sen- 
tence from Goethe: "Im Ganzen, Guten, Schonen resolut zu 
leben," and split the sentence into four parts, which correspond 
to the other four terms already inscribed. I have also written 
four words in English, which represent the sense of the German 
words. 

If you place Diagram No. 2, Teh, over Diagram No. 1, 
Tao, the respective fours all correspond, and No. 2 will be 
seen to be the psychological counterpart to No. 1 just as it 
ought to be if Teh is the realization of Tao. 

So much for the diagrams for the present. I have said 
that I shall not now give a number of quotations to prove what 
Teh is. I will instead give a totality view of Teh and yet never 
for a moment swerve from my diagram (No. 2.) 

To give this totality view I shall use a phrase from Goethe : 
"Im Ganzen, Guten, Schonen resolut zu leben/' or in English, 
" to live with determination in the whole, the good and the 
beautiful." I have chosen the phrase because it is so apt and 
because you may hear it elsewhere. It is often quoted in phil- 
osophical discussions in this country and in England. To live 
in the whole, the good and the beautiful implies an attention 
to self, which needs explanation to forestall misunderstanding. 
I shall speak a great deal about self-realization in this and the 
next chapter. 

When I speak of self-realization I must not be understood 
to mean self in separateness, self as imagining itself as better 
or higher than its origin, nor the self that individually can set 
itself up against the not-self. Self-realization in that sense 
cannot be condemned too severely. The East acts in harmony 
with the West in raising the condemning hand against it. Both 
East and West consider self-realization in that sense a sin, a 
rebellion against the Higher Self and the order of the universe. 
Self-realization is the distinctive crime of our own age and per- 
haps no more marked in any country than in the United States. 
Without being a pessimist or a professional reformer, I predict 
great trouble coming upon this age because of its fall from the 
ideal, the true self. 

When I speak of self in a good sense I mean the self which 
is a manifestation, or which approximately manifests the Higher 
Self, the Divinity. In one sense Auguste Comie spoke the 



TEH 155 

eternal truth when he asserted that the old saying, " The 
heavens declare the glory of God " had lost its meaning and 
that the names of Hipparchus, Kepler and Newton meant much 
more than the starry heavens. It will be true, and will be true 
to us all, when our soul shall have become identified with the 
Absolute, that the heavens no more declare the glory of God, be- 
cause we then shall have become the souls of the starry heavens, 
but now for the present ' ' ourselves ' 9 dare not claim so much as 
Comte claimed. To do so now would be to persist in a grievous 
error and sin and totally to misconceive what self-realization 
means. 

Self-realization is Teh as defined by Laotzse, or that which 
we can do and must do in this present moment in order to be 
representations of Tao. Self-realization means that man be- 
comes the true manifestation of the Universal, whether we name 
this Universal impersonally or personally. Self-realization 
means a perfect substitution of all that which I in the past have 
called " Inner Life," and all that which this term implies; a 
substitution of that for all and everything that can be called 
external, separate and individual. Such self-realization does 
not imply the destruction of anything human of eternal value; 
on the contrary, it means the full blossom of humanity. Our- 
selves at present, our personality, as we call it, is no more than 
an ever changing plurality. "When our personality shall have 
been cut down on all its sharp edges, hammered into its inherent 
plan and purpose, and re-invigorated with eternal life, then, and 
first then, can we talk about " realized selves," about self- 
realization accomplished. Then we are eternal units. Until 
then we can only dream about the accomplishment of that high 
and ultimate ideal. Such dreams will pass before your vision in 
my present discourse ; no more. 

I propose to claim that Goethe's phrase, " To live deter- 
minedly in the whole, in the good and in the beautiful," is a 
very good transcription of the meaning of Teh. Goethe did 
not know either Tao or Teh of the Tao-Teh-King, hence did not 
use the phrase in the sense I do. But that does not matter. 
The sentence is full of meaning just in the line of my discourse, 
and I shall use it with entire freedom. 

I will use the four parts of it in their natural succession 
and as arranged on the diagram. They stand grouped around 
Teh because they in the square represent the outer, while Teh 
represents the inner, whence they have sprung. 



156 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

By il im Ganzen" "in the whole,' ' in general, I shall under- 
stand To Pan "the All" as a unit, both as known scientifically 
and as known intuitively; both objectively, subjectively and 
transcendentally ; " the All," both personally as God and im- 
personally as the universe; both as life and as death, and " the 
All" in all forms and moods indefinable. 

By living " im Ganzen," " in the whole," I shall under- 
stand to live " in consciousness of the whole"; the very opposite 
of living in " separateness " or isolation from it. 

How can we live determinedly " with a will " in " the All " 
such as I have attempted to suggest what " the All " may be t 
I will use an illustration. This candle may suggest the ideal I 
(See Diagram 3.) 

I shall, of course, be able only to show "the All " in one 
aspect. I will show it as light or truth; light or truth as qual- 
ity ; light or truth as form and judge ; as the ordering principle 
in existence ; or as I also shall call it, the Apollo, and the Christ 
principle. While I thus only show one aspect, that aspect will 
suggest the Whole. 




diagram 3. 



TEH 157 

My text is this candle. How does it illustrate ? I will 
show you and show it in the psychological process of develop- 
ment, leaving out all other views. 

(1) The wax (tallow) represents the sub-conscious exist- 
ence of the soul and corresponds to soil for the plant. The 
sub-conscious existence is the sum total of all the souPs fore- 
gone life, good, bad and indifferent. It is made up of natural 
qualities, of the soul's magical experiences, of its recollections, 
its karma, its struggles, failures and triumphs. The light of 
the candle is according to the quality of the tallow. And the 
form of embodied Teh is according to the quality of the natural 
basis upon which it rests. 

(2) The taper makes it possible for the tallow to burn 
steadily and usefully. 

In the psychological life the taper represents conscious- 
ness, such as it is developed by education. The Teh appears 
in the consciousness of a Laotzse, a Plato, a Buddha, as well 
as in a Congo negro — but how differently! 

(3) The black core is heat, and the not yet fully consumed 
taper and tallow. It therefore represents sub-consciousness 
and also the more or less developed consciousness ; let me call it 
self -consciousness. Self-consciouness in a good sense is a step 
beyond consciousness and one toward spirituality or freedom. 
The black core is Teh in a glow, or what Frederik Hegel would 
call " diremption, ' ' a state of interior struggle for full self- 
realization and dominion over the Not-Me, or the objective 
world. 

(4) The yellow light represents what is understood by the 
phrase " the soul is the candle of the Lord"; that is, the Teh is 
fully born in the soul, though not yet fully developed. In this 
degree the night or the Law, the Path, is receding and the ' ' Sun 
of righteousness is arising with salvation on his wings." In 
human psychological development it is that stage in which we 
begin truly to say " I " — that marvellous word ! 

(5) The white light represents the full illumination. Indi- 
viduality or separateness has vanished and the pure soul spreads 
its beneficent light and warmth round about. The Teh has not 
only taken the place of all law or the path or objectivity, but 
law or path has been completed by being dissolved and trans- 
muted into it. 

(6) The diffused light is Tao and Teh, or Divinity in All, 
and All lifted into heavenly blessedness. 



158 THE INNEB LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

Here then are revealed six psychological stages, or six 
stages of Teh's inner nature. No amount of quotations or defi- 
nitions could illustrate it as fully and as easily as a lighted 
candle. Light a candle at home and sit down quietly to medi- 
tate, and you shall find the candle a master guru, a sage. 

The candle burns in simplicity and stillness such as you have 
heard these two words explained in the past chapters. 

All this is not only psychologically true, but also historic- 
ally. 

(1) The wax or tallow is the Orient, say China, or man- 
kind's unconscious will, the soil in which grows all the coming 
civilization. 

(2) The taper is the dawning life. For instance, in India 
and Assyria and Egypt. 

(3) The black core is Greek consciousness. 

(4) The yellow light is the Hebrew awakening in the 
Messiah. 

(5) The white light is primitive Christianity , and 

(6) The diffused light is that realization of the union of 
God and Man, "perfected humanity,' ' Teh, which is yet to come. 

Again I call your attention to the former chapter, in which 
I drew a parallelogram enclosing a geographical sphere, within 
which was shown the life of our cycle and the people who rep- 
resented it. By comparison you will see further confirmation 
of the assertions I made at the time. 

Though this last, the "perfect humanity," Teh is yet to 
come, history fully proves that Teh is the fulfilment of the law 
of evolution, both the natural and the moral law. And that it 
is the fulfilment means that where Teh is dominant, there the 
law or path, the isolating principle in the evolution, has vanished 
because it has been transmuted into a higher reality ! 

In this candle you have an illustration of one mode of exist- 
ence of " the All," the mode of light, Teh as light. The com- 
parison of soul to a light or candle is a common figure of speech 
in all occult lore. There are many reasons for it; too many, 
however, to enumerate here. Your own intuitions can easily 
supply them. 

Eealize the different stages of the light ; the tallow or wax, 
the taper, the black core, the yellow light, the white light, the 
diffused light in your own existence; live them all freely and 
fully at the same time, and you realize self — that is, that you are 



teh's nature 159 

a universal self, not an isolated one, not one standing apart 
and dying. 

This is the ideal ! How to do it in particulars in actual 
life? 

2. 

By * ' im Ganzen, ' ' " in the whole, ' ' specially, I shall under- 
stand to holon (totum), the idea of experience as a collection, a 
special kind of whole. In contradistinction to " the All " in 
general, this conception implies something that is changeable. 
Nature, (natura, phi/sis, prakriti) for instance, is such a con- 
ception; the word " Nature " implies all sense perceptions of 
objects in the outer world and the variability of these objects. 
We ourselves, as we actually are, are such a changeable form of 
the All. We grow ! 

Eealizing this changeable nature, many of us have fallen 
into the grievous error of running about asking for salvation, 
as if salvation had anything to do with self-realization. Salvation 
is given to all ! We never were anything else than saved ! 

What we want is to assert our God-likeness and God-call, 
to realize " I am that I am." Let us assert: (1) " A cosmos 
I am," both nature and spirit, therefore I claim the perfect 
body and perfect spirit. 

(2) Let man realize the woman in him — let women realize 
the man in themselves. 

(3) Trust in thine own untried capacity 
As thou wouldst trust in God himself. 
Thou dost not dream what forces lie in thee, 
Vast and unfathomed as the grandest sea. 
No man shall place a limit to thy strength ; 
Such triumphs as no mortal ever gained 
May yet be thine if thou wilt but believe 
. In . . . thyself. 

(E. W. Wilcox.) 

Such ideas are the power of " the All," and they lead life 
to sovereign power ! They are of the form of the new con- 
sciousness ! 

3 

By "im Guten," "in the good," in a general sense, I shall 
understand (agathon-bonum), that which is the final aim and 



160 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

end of all ethical action, both externally and spiritually. The 
good in this sense is synonymous with deity, the ultimate ground, 
not only of moral activity, but of all reality. It is the cosmic and 
ethic principle, and this more closely denned as love. 

By living * ' im Guten, ' ' ' ' in the good, ' ' I shall understand 

living in consciousness of the soul's essential identity with the 

good or God (the very opposite of " evil," such as for instance 

Shakespeare's Richard III. declares it to be his principle.) 

, How do we live determinately, with a will, in this condition ! 

Here again I shall fall back upon an illustration, and the 
suggestion that comes from the illustration. (See Diagram 
No. 4.) 

This flower shall be the suggester. It shall represent love, 
the good. Under the form of those terms it is full of sugges- 
tions. As I did before, when I recommended the candle as a 
master guru, so now I recommend a living flower. The facts 
here are the pot and the plant, but these facts are not the flower 
or Teh. (A) The flower or Teh, (1), is that passion which 
gripped the seed and forced it out of itself, and (2) that passion 
in the sub-conscious which drew it into its womb, the soil, and 
(3) that passion which here blossoms before you, and (4) that 
passion or " cosmic emotion " which reaches from this plant in 
phenomenal appearance to your image-building power; that 
passion which connects the two, and (5) that passion or " cosmic 
consciousness " which turns away from the sun's light (which 
is conditioned by earth atmosphere) and hastens inward towards 
a sphere, which is its infinite antecedents, and it is (6) a passion 
that seeks its own, its own family marks in intensity, not in 
immensity ; it is eternal being. 

(B) The flower or Teh in symbol is also the trembling 
stem. If you could have seen concentrated into a few moments 
the growth that took time, you would have seen and heard har- 
monies built upon harmonies, visible melody, an outward rush- 
ing, an uplift, and an inward ' ' coming to be. ' ' That is Teh. 

(C) And finally the flower or Teh in symbol are the blos- 
soms. What is a blossom ? Nature baring her bosom, show- 
ing her beauty ! Did you ever see blossoms ? 

Plants are passions, torrents of "Teh," sometimes in 
minor key, mournful and melancholy; sometimes fast and ani- 
mated ; sometimes a murmur, and sometimes a roar ; always wild 
children, though they look so quiet. Do not misunderstand ! Do 
not think of human passions, those self -destructive tires ! Teh 



161 

as passion is not a destructive fire. The central idea of the 
word passion in its origin is suffering. Teh is Tao incarnated 
in the world, and therefore " suffering," therefore full of pain, 
but always animated. 

The root of the plant is the eternal " being " of Teh; the 
stem is " the coming to be "; the blossom is revelation in all 
fullness, in all fulfilment. 

But this is hard of comprehension. Let me therefore for 
Teh substitute a living idea, such as that of Jesus, for instance, 
and you shall see Teh before your eyes. 

Jesus is not a man, but type of a passional movement. His 
life resembles a passional movement like that of a flower. 

The story of Jesus is like this: (1) He strikes roots in 
oriental earth. He is Oriental, not European or American. 
(2) He is from Abraham; that is, Abrahm (out-of-Brahm.) So 
is a flower out-of-Brahm, substance. 

(3) The story of Jesus breaks fully through in the Law by 
Moses, in the Song by David, in the shadow pictures by Isaiah. 
(4) The story rises to consciousness in classical culture.What 
is culture but the breaking through the soil, that the flower 
and blossom may appear? It was Jesus breaking with the ex- 
isting bondage that awakened his consciousness of a call, and his 




Diagram 4. 



162 THE IN NEK LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

call became the flower of his life. (5) Finally the story blos- 
soms in the New Testament, and the blossom is an at-one-ing, a 
redeeming note of love, passion and despair in harmony ; fulness, 
fulfilling the whole past course. And that blossom was the 
revelation of the purpose of the whole movement. The history 
of Teh. 

(6) The flower is bewildering in its majesty and seductive 
in its calm; and so is the story of Jesus, overwhelming in his 
declaration of the oneness of the Almighty, the Allgood, the 
Allwise and the Soul. (" The father and I are one.") And a 
flower plant is just such oneness. The plant is neither the 
root, the stem, the leaves, the blossom, but all these in one. Teh 
is not any special act. The life story of the soul is Teh. 

No wonder that Jesus of the legend so often dealt with 
plants and referred to nature's harmonies. He felt himself to 
be ' ' God with us, ' ' or the present nature. He is Teh or enthus- 
iasm, a plant that grows everywhere in the universe. 

Jesus is not a scientific fact, nor a man, nor a thought. He 
is great passion — enthusiasm. Enthusiasm translated from 
Greek thought to Hebrew thought gives us the Greek word Jesus 
as Jehovah-Hosea, and that contracted is Jehosuah, and that 
translated into English is " God with us." Jesus thus is an 
expression for Teh in you and me. 

Without passion or enthusiasm we shall never understand 
the mystery of Jesus. No belief or Bible study will reveal the 
mystery. 

Teh seen as Jesus is the voice of Tao calling in " the cool 
of the evening" upon the sinner, and is also the bell to morning 
prayer and adoration. 

Jesus is no mere man, he is love ; he is Teh, a present God. 
I see him wherever there is life and love, light and law ; in the 
landscape, in the boisterous and wild ocean, in the calm starlit 
night ; in the amorous lines of the human body ; in the monoto- 
nous beat of an Indian's drum, in an axiom of Euclid; in the 
bended back that carries the hoe ; yes, I hear his cry in the fac- 
tory and the prison. 

The Jesus idea was familiar to the ancient world. It meant 
passion, color, enthusiasm, and resembles the Dionysios idea, if 
we look for pictures in Greek life ; not Bacchus, the drunkard, 
but Dionysios of the Orphic Mysteries. It is worth your while 
to study this aspect of the Jesus idea. It reveals Teh as an 
evolutionary force, and Teh will be seen to be the root idea of 



jesus 163 

religion, science, poetry and philosophy. It wili also give the 
true understanding of the desperately misunderstood idea of 
incarnation. 

If we look for parallels to the Christ idea we find an ex- 
cellent one in the Greek Apollo. That, too, would be for all a 
most useful study. It will reveal the inter-relationship of the 
idea Jesus and Christ, Teh and Tao. 

The Jewish-Christian converts thought of Christ very much 
as the Dorian Greeks thought of Apollo. Apollo to the Greek 
was the god of law, order or righteousness, the chief of the polls, 
or city government, and the revenger of all infractions. Apollon- 
ism in Doric aspects is much like Paulinism of the New Testa- 
ment. 

The Attic Greeks, on the other hand, understood Apollo 
very nearly like the Christ of St. John's Gospel. Apollo to 
them was the aesthetic and plastic element in existence. He 
was god of music or rhythm, and the ideal of beauty, the god 
of reason, Logos — the same names are given the Christ. Ap- 
ollonism in Attic aspect is very much like Johanism of the New 
Testament. In both aspects there is a strong parallelism be- 
tween the Apollo idea and the Christ idea. 

4. 

By " im Guten " " in the good," in a special sense, I shall 
understand to mean a thing possessing worth. 

The various races and the changing times have varying 
ideas about " the highest good." The new consciousness, that 
of the New Ages, realizes its idea of the good by fulfilling its 
own law. Our own law tells us that our everlasting, joyous and 
undeniable duty is to impress our stamp upon others. Our self- 
sacrifice is therefore not negative, as the old law was, but it is 
positive. In passional activity we and the New Age fulfill the 
ideal of the flower, of Teh. Passional activity is a magic 
phrase, but easily understood in the light of what I have said. 
It was said of Jesus : ' ' He went about and did good ! ' ' For 
us it does not merely mean laboring to do good, but also to show 
the example, to inspire by presence. 

Thus far I have shown Teh in the process of ' ' self-realiza- 
tion," "im Ganzen" (the All), under aspect of the Christ or 
light, by means of a candle; and "im Guten" under aspect of 



164 THE INNEB LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

Jesus or love, and by means of a flower. It remains to show 
Teh ' ' im Schonen. ' ' I shall try to do it by still another illustra- 
tion, the ocean. I will show the ocean under the aspect of 
beauty, the sublime. 

The ocean is the most uncertain and unstable of all things 
in the world, and so is beauty, in spite of appearance. And so 
is Teh. Yet both ocean, beauty and Teh impress us constantly 
with the idea of " eternity, immensity and power.' ' I will try 
to show it. 

My description of the traits of the ocean are taken from 
Eichard Henry Stoddard's "Hymn to the Sea." 

"Thou wert before the continents, before 
The hollow heavens, which, like another sea, 
Encircles them and Thee; but whence Thou wert 
And when Thou wast created, is not known. ' ' 

" The self " or soul that has been in the trance of beauty 
or Teh and identified itself with it, knows beauty or Teh as being 
eternal like love, and beauty is love's form. The three, love 
and beauty and Teh, are inseparable and encircling the earth 
and sky — yea, reaching beyond! The soul perceives this and is 
itself such a far-reaching power. Beauty's or Teh's origin is 
not known outside of the soul. Nor is the origin of soul known. 

" Antiquity was young when Thou wast old. 
There is no limit to Thy strength, no end 
To Thy magnificence. ' ' 

Antiquity is of time; beauty or Teh has no limit to its 
strength. Already Plato had discovered that when " justice " 
and wisdom, and all other things that are held in honor, find no 
avenue to the soul, beauty has still some passage and entrance. 
The soul and Teh have entrance where no law can penetrate. 
What grand personality the ocean manifests ! It is the soul or 
Teh in form unknown to science and philosophy ! 

" Thou goest forth 

On thy long journeys to remotest lands, 

And comest back unwearied." 

How could beauty or Teh ever weary ? Beauty's smile 
never yawns. Beauty's virginal lines never jade and beauty's 
untiring colors are never exhausted. Neither is Teh weary or 
getting old; is ever young blood. There is Teh or beauty of 



THE SEA 165 

soul that never dies ; there is Teh or beauty on tropic isles and 
Arctic icebergs; in " the sullen sorrow of the sky," and the 
1 ' laughter of the Sun ' ' ; Teh or beauty is the constitutive ele- 
ment. Try to separate them if you can. 
6 i Thou art terrible 

In thy tempestuous moods, when the loud winds 
Precipitate their strength against the waves. ' ' 

Ah, who thought beauty was only "the long, slow rolling 
summer days on beaches far away ? ' ' Surely they have never 
seen ' ' a soul on fire, ' ' nor heard of Apollo 's arrows or cowered 
under Athena's stern face, nor ever experienced Teh's demands 
upon the soul. They have never understood life's set purpose 
with us. 

" The heavens look down and see themselves in Thee. 
And splendors seen not elsewhere." 

Yea, so it is ! Teh is magnificent ! The angels are desirous 
of knowing the mystery of a soul. They are themselves only 
naked spirits desiring body. The heavens see their own color 
in the ocean. The angels see splendors not seen elsewhere. 
But men experience Teh ! 

Should we not rejoice in Teh, in Beauty; our Teh, our 
Beauty ! Beauty or Teh of body, Beauty or Teh of soul ! 

" Thine the silent, happy, awful night, 
When over Thee and Thy charmed waves the moon 
Rides high " 

When the poet here speaks of the silent, happy, awful night, 
we think only of conditions that are without sound, but not 
without voice. The night, the self, the ocean, Teh are never 
without voice, though sometimes silent. Teh or Beauty is the 
voice that calls all creation to come forth. The voice, the word, 
is the incarnated love. Beauty ! Teh ! 

The poet finally starts in to talk about death, but corrects 
himself at once and exclaims : 

" No! 



There is no death. The thing that we call death 
Is but another, sadder name for life, 
Which is itself an insufficient name, 
Faint recognition of that unknown life, — 
That power whose shadow is the universe." 



166 THE INNEE LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

Yes, " shadow " is the word ! Shadow paints Teh, beauty, 
by contrast. Teh is not death ! Teh is life and always was ! 

I think I have said sufficient to suggest what self-realization, 
"im Schonen," is. "Where are there such worshippers of 
beauty? Where can they be found? A religion of beauty is as 
much a necessity for us as a religion of goodness, or forms that 
embrace the whole. 

How much there is still to be done before our humanity can 
reflect Tao as Teh ! How much before my diagrams can be said 
to be line drawings of our ways of life! 

6. 

By "im Schonen/' in a special sense, I shall understand 
any one of the innumerable terms of love, which we may be at- 
tracted to individually, or which may be our form or plan of 
life. I need not detail the thought. Pictures of beauty hover 
before your imagination. Beal^ze one of them ! 

By " resolut zu leben," I shall in general understand to live 
determinately, or according to the whole trend or plan of our 
life as we know it, both in consciousness and conscience. 

We need resolutely to assert our God-likeness ! 

Finally I must, at least, indicate the special mode of ' i living 
determinedly. ' y Again I will substitute a picture for the 
abstract term Teh. You can see the picture in the book that 
contains the Christ poem. The Christ idea is the determined 
realization of the whole, the good, the beautiful, thus : 

(1) The Christ " is the principle in whom all things stand 
together,' ' as it was said in Paul's letter to the Collossians. 

(2) Jesus said: "I and the Father are one.'' 

(3) All the parables are in the Beautiful. 

(4) Finally "the determinate living ,, is expressed by 
"faithful unto death." 

You are familiar with these expressions. They all contain 
the conception Teh. 



LIFE, LOVE, LIGHT AND WILL 
XL 

IN the last chapter I described how to live the life which is of 
Teh by using a phrase of Goethe's: "Im Ganzen, Guten, 
Schonen resolut zu leben. ' ' I will now show how this four- 
fold life connects with corresponding powers within our own 
constitution, and, that this corresponding fourfoldness makes it 
not only possible, but easy to live with determination in the 
Whole, the Good and the Beautiful. 

On Diagram II. I designate the four inherent powers as 
Life, Love, Light and determined Will. The terms are entirely 
my own, and not used by anybody else, as far as I know. I have 
used them for many years in my studies of the subject, but I 
would not lay any special weight upon them. Other terms may 
be as suitable and perhaps convey the same ideas. What I do 
mean by them I shall explain, and, I shall hope that you for 
yourself will substitute other terms if you have such and if 
they convey to you the ideas I intend to express. The main 
point is the idea or the psychological fact, not the name we give 
the fact. 

These four terms inscribed in the respective four corners 
of Diagram II. represent ideas connected with the ancient classi- 
fication of temperaments into four groups, usually attributed 
to Hippocrates: the sanguine, choleric, melancholic and phleg- 
matic. I say ideas distinctly connected with this classification, 
because I do not bind myself to it nor do I think that classifica- 
tion exhaustive. However, defective as it is, it serves admirably 
for a broad classification of our congenital constitution, and it 
has the advantage of being biological. We get the best psy- 
chology where we begin biologically, on sure foundations in na- 
ture. Moreover, back of these four temperaments lie the ele- 
ments fire, air, earth, water, such as the ancients named them, 
and, also the four forms of the spiritual world: supreme good- 



168 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

ness, nous, psyche, hyle, and, also the influences from the four 
corners of the universe. 

Our bodily constitution gives a bias to our disposition, and 
that bias is usually called temperament and distinguished in a 
four fold way as sanguinic, choleric, melancholic and phlegmatic. 
Temperament is nothing else than a predominant characteristic 
of our natural inclinations and tendencies, and the four names 
I have put on the diagram are simply my transcriptions of the 
four terms: sanguinic, choleric, melancholic and phlegmatic, 
which I have not put down on the diagram, because I wanted to 
avoid the confusion that was apt to arise if I wrote too much on. 
it. I only mention this about the temperaments to give you a 
clue to my terms : life, love, light and will, and to indicate that 
I begin in biology, the true psychological basis. Besides the 
four terms I have used, there are others which I might have 
written on the diagram, but which I also have left out in order 
to avoid confusion. You can readily add them yourself if you 
wish. 

Among such terms are those of a four-foldness described 
in Paul's letter to the Ephesians (Eph. 4.11-15). Paul speaks 
of the appointment of apostles, prophets, evangelists and pas- 
toral teachers, who were set in the church in order to perfect 
the saints, to build up the church, that all might attain to the 
unity of faith and grow to be full grown men and no more be 
children driven by any and every wind of doctrine. That which 
Paul here describes as the order of the ministry of the early 
church is admirable psychology. If we understand what apos- 
tles, prophets, evangelists and pastoral teachers mean, the whole 
psychological system of the Path and of Teh, as understood by 
Paul, is marvellous in its simplicity. I will try to elucidate. 

The apostolic power is the spirit in rational preeminence. 
It is the power that has the eye upon the Whole, both in its 
outer features and in its inner. It is the embodiment of Logos- 
Eeason or the fundamental human power which is the spring 
of all mental, moral and spiritual manifestations. In the apos- 
tolic power there is something dominant like that silent but 
weighty force which the earth exhibits everywhere. In the 
catacombs, the apostle 's symbol is a lion and his robe is yellow, 
like the earth under the burning sun in the Orient. The apos- 
tolic character lies in the first Kabbalistic world of Aziah, the 
world of activity or earth. 

The prophetic power spoken of is the Wisdom-power or, as 



THE PROPHET AND EVANGELIST. 169 

the classical people called it, the Hermes. Hermes was mes- 
senger from the Highest and his nature was represented as 
being that of the Wind, a term which to the ancients was synony- 
mous with Spirit. The prophet was not a soothsayer but a 
divine messenger or witness. In the ancient church he was the 
preacher or which was the same the witness, the witness or pro- 
claimer of the divine truth. The prophet was a sort of execu- 
tive officer of the Spirit. The ancient symbol used as an ex- 
pression for his office was an eagle and usually shown on blue 
felt, clearly indicative of his soaring spirit. The prophetic char- 
acter lies in the second Kabbalistic world of Yetzirah, the world 
of formation. 

The evangelist is also a messenger, but one sent by an 
authority, not directly from heaven like the prophet. The evange- 
list is the man with the large warm heart who goes out into the 
world with the "glad tidings' ' and who brings milk and honey, 
to the hungry. His symbol is double. He is represented by 
the "human face divine" back of him, and with the figure of an 
ass at his side. The idea being that he has human feeling as 
motive power and also the steadiness, ye, obstinacy of the ass, 
that will not be driven away by stripes, and, which morever 
is satisfied to eat that on the fields which the ox or other animals 
will not eat. The evangelistic character lies in the third Kab- 
balistic world, the world of Briah, the world of creation. 

The pastoral teacher is symbolically represented as the pa- 
tient ox on the threshing floor in the East, which treads out the 
corn by steady and patient walking round and round. This 
symbol explains him as the more or less phlegmatic or patient 
teacher who by persistent labor brings out the fruit in the pupil, 
who is being trained in spiritual life. He is not original like 
the prophet, nor authoritative like the apostle, nor fiery like the 
evangelist, but he is really the cornerstone in the spiritual edi- 
fice, for what does all the work of the other offices amount to, 
if the teaching pastor did not teach the initiate how to masti- 
cate and assimilate? The pastor and teachers' character lies 
in the fourth Kabbalistic world, the world of Atziloth, the 
archetypal world. 

Reviewing the four offices as now described, you can readily 
see the truth of Paul's statement, that they are necessary for 
full growth, for unity and perfection, not only in an outer organi- 
zation made up of people of the four temperaments, but also 



170 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

in each one of us. Though we have only one temperament pre- 
dominant, we have the other three in less degree and they need 
training and guidance as much as the one which is dominant. 
I shall come back to this fourfoldness at the end of this chapter 
and make a personal application of it. 

The square represents man as a temple. The square is 
ethically an emblem of sincerity ; it means wholeness, health and 
harmony on a plane of life different from that of nature. The 
circle, the line that runs into itself, stands for similar perfec- 
tions in nature. The square in the sense I use it was discovered, 
or at any rate is credited, to operative Masonry and Free- 
Masonry. The circle could not be used as a symbol for temple, 
and has not been used, because a temple is not a nature-product ; 
a temple is a human symbol for a human creative act. The 
word square has gone into human language as a term for in- 
tegrity and beauty. We are square physically when we form an 
equilateral quadrature by standing upright, feet joined and arms 
outstretched. We are square spiritually when the events of 
our lives follow the principle of fourfoldness expressed by the 
law of "the limbs." The metaphysical and physical supple- 
ment one another. We are square cosmologically and theolog- 
ically by other figures and measurements unnecessary to detail 
at present. 

The idea of the square I have derived from the Apocalypse 
of St. John. I use it because of its psychological character. I 
will explain what that means. St. John saw the New Jerusalem 
descend in the form of a man and that form was described as 
being a square. That mystery only becomes intelligible when 
you place the human figure with outstretched arms inscribed in 
a square, making the length of the body from head to sole equal 
to the length of the arms and hands from finger tip to finger 
tip. A square drawn around such a figure may well represent 
the human temple and the psychological fourfoldness of man in 
his temperamental actions. Such a figure in a square is to be 
recommended to all who study man's constitution and their own. 
For microcosmic man. it answers to the macrocosmic man's fig- 
ure in that temple I gave in a former chapter, and located geo- 
graphically from China to the Mediterranean sea and a few de- 
grees north of the tropic of Cancer. 

Laotzse knew the fourfoldness. The cosmogony of the Tao- 
Teh-King is this: 

Tao gave birth to 1 (Tao-sen-yit). 



COSMOGONY 171 

1 gave birth to 2 (Yit-sen-ri). 

2 gave birth to 3 (Ei-sen-sam). 

3 gave birth to 4 (Sam-sen-wan-wut or the 10,000 things), 
and the 10,000 things carry (1) Yin on the back and hold, (2) 
Yang in the arms, and these two produce, (3) Harmony, or the 
living principle, and, these three together constitute (4) the 
world ; in other words Yin, Yang, Harmony and the world also 
constitute a fourfoldness. Eather interesting; is it not? Yin 
and Yang mean Mother and Father. 

So much for Diagram II. and its construction. The word 
Teh, stands in the centre of the Diagram and I shall now try to 
make you see these four as emanations from Teh. 

Those who have given serious attention to the life that 
seems to rush by them; anybody who has observed phenomena 
and thought about their causes, must have become aware that 
existence, either in cosmic or human form, is something dyna- 
mic, something living, is much like a stream. To be sure, 
none of us know either the stream's spring nor its outlet to an 
ocean, if there be any ocean. We see only that something 
under space and time conditions. It is even possible that there 
is no stream and that we read our own changeable nature into 
that which we call the universe. 

However, we see change. Even fire, if it be not stirred, will 
go to sleep and die. Like ships swinging around on the anchor 
chain, we do not really get away, but nevertheless we are always 
in motion, because life itself moves by ebb and flood. Water 
without circulation becomes stagnant and pollutes itself. Moral 
bugles are always calling us ; we are never allowed rest except 
we wed ourselves to death. Streams, physical, mental and 
moral ; winds, spiritual or otherwise, keep up a circulation every- 
where. Some of us in pessimistic moods see these currents 
only as destructive and point to all the flotsam and jetsam 
they carry along. Others more optimistic see only how great 
majestic ships of human dignity and worth sail down in the 
deep waters and safely pass all dangers. 

Wherever mankind has had an eye for such a movement it 
has usually also seen that movement under a twofold aspect and 
named these aspects variously. In China the twofold aspect 
was seen long ago, and by Laotzse the two were named Tao and 
Teh; and he, like the other ancient sages, by these two terms 
described what he perceived, and he did it in the Tao-Teh-King. 
I have already set forth what Laotzse meant by Tao and there 



172 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

is but little more to say. I began to speak about Teh in the 
last chapter and shall now give some more information. I will 
claim that the word Teh represents such movements, changes, 
emanations, streams and dynamic forces, as those I have hinted 
at as descriptions of That which takes place around us. 

I have frequently used the word Teh and given suggestions 
about it; yet much is still left to be said. Something of that 
still unsaid I shall try to bring out by placing the Teh in rela- 
tionship to the conceptions evolution and karma, and thereby 
gain some means by which to explain it. 

I shall not define evolution nor karma. By evolution I shall 
in general understand the movement in the universe so aptly 
defined by Herbert Spencer and Science in general, and I shall 
take the word largely in a physical sense. By Karma I shall 
understand practically the same as I understand by evolution, 
but I shall take the word mainly in a moral and spiritual sense. 
At any rate I shall give the word a very wide and universal 
meaning. 

These two words, evolution and karma, have many equiva- 
lents, varying according to views taken, and it will have its 
interest that I give you some of these equivalents and explain 
them to some extent, because the equivalents will help to explain 
Tao and Teh, the two old Chinese terms for thoughts similar 
to some aspects of evolution, karma and the other terms, as I 
shall now mention them in the following and elucidate them. 

The classical people, Greeks and Eomans, used the term 
destiny or fate, and the fullest explanation of this word is 
that given by Seneca in his epistles. I will therefore reproduce 
this Stoic's words. I will quote Seneca in full because his 
definition is probably least known. 

"They (our ancestors) did not by any means believe this, 
that Jupiter, as we worship him at the Capitol and in other 
shrines, sent down thunderbolts from his hand; but they recog- 
nized the same Jupiter as we do, the same director and guardian 
of the universe, the mind and soul of the world, the lord and 
maker of this work, to whom each name belongs. You wish to 
say that he is Providence, you will speak correctly; for he is 
the one by whose wisdom the world is cared for, so that it may 
proceed safely and perform its tasks. You wish to call him 
Nature ; you will not sin. He is the One from whom all come ; 
by whose spirit we live. You wish to call him the World, you 



SENECA 173 

will not be deceived, for he is all this which is visible, set in his 
own members, sustaining himself and his. ' n 

"If you speak of Nature, Fate, Fortune, all are names of 
the same God, who is manifesting himself in these various 
ways. ' ' 2 

I need not say much in explanation of Seneca. As you 
noticed, he advises not to care for names but to get at the fact 
behind names. And speaking in the language of the Tao-Teh- 
King, the fact he cares for is named Teh. And Teh as a fact 
is presented by Laotzse as a "power that makes for righteous- 
ness," a power that has its being in all our modes of existence. 
A power and purpose, a will and a way, name it as we may, 
exists as a fact and cannot be denied. Look upon it as evolu- 
tion, as karma or under any of the aspects mentioned by Seneca 
— there it is, and, as Seneca (Ep, 107.11) also says, "it leads 
the willing and drags the unwilling. " 

An ancient Greek poet describing the mother of the gods, 
said she was "One shape of many names. " That description 
fits Teh admirably. Not only is Teh of motherly nature (though 
the Tao-Teh-King knows no gods) but Teh is multiform and 
many named, as I have said, and that because Teh enters into 
all human actions as the organizing reason, the forming and 
plastic principle, and gets its many names from these incarna- 
tions. 

Such a principle as Teh is peculiar to humanity. Through- 
out the organic world, action is regulated mainly by hereditary 
structure; and secondarily by reflex action or instinct derived 
from hereditary structure. But action with man is modified by 
intelligent use of experience, by the reflex action of the accumu- 
lated results of mankind's past experiences. That action and 
those accumulated results of mankind's past experiences is in 
Chinese called Teh; with us, scientifically, Morals, principles of 
morals or principles for the conduct of our spiritual life. 

The Calvinist among christian theologians chose the term 
election and understood one small action of that which other 
christians call Providence, a term so personal that they are 
constantly in trouble when asked to explain it. 

Among scientists you meet with the biologist who has a term 
of his own, by which he accounts for both cause and effect and 
motion, too. "Selection" is his magic word. I need not spend 

x Seneca Naturalium Quest. Lib. 11. Cap. 45.1, 2, 3. 

2 Seneca. De Beneficiis Lib. lv.8. 



174 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

any time on it; you are familiar with it if you have followed 
the literature of the last thirty years. The same is the case 
with the phrase "cosmic process/ ' so handy to the evolutionist 
as an explanation of facts he does not understand and which 
his narrow science has no room for. 

Pantheistic poets of modern days speak of "cosmic emo- 
tion' ? and quote Sidgwick and Eomanes as their authorities; 
other poets of the same color have varied the phrase and speak 
of "tides of eternal emotions." The mystics of all ages have 
called the same phenomena and their causes "love." The 
future will probably see other terms and hear other expres- 
sions. And it is well that new terms and expressions should 
come forth. They prove that some parts of mankind are neither 
dead nor asleep. Whatever terms be applied, they all signify 
that the power they name is one that works for uplift, for evo- 
lution, for progress, for spiritual life, for the Inner Life. The 
terms employed always signify quality in contradistinction to 
quantity, and they all have a tendency to be personal in char- 
acter and all stand somewhat in opposition to something imper- 
sonal. It seems that no teacher can avoid personification. 
Whatever terms be employed and whether they be considered 
personally or impersonally they can all be translated, by Teh, 
as the Tao-Teh-King uses that word. 

I, myself, shall not ofrer new terms. I am engaged in re- 
storing Teh to its right place and I mean to use with perfectly 
liberty and whenever I want any of the terms I have just now 
enumerated, because they express various aspects of the Chinese 
conception of Teh. But this I will say right here, that with the 
exception of Seneca's explication of all that which lies in the 
word fate, all the other terms apply principally to Tao and only 
secondarily to Teh. With the exception of Stoicism, the West 
knows next to nothing of such a conception as that of Teh as 
the mother of the universe ; or as we can say, since Goethe, the 
' ' eternally feminine. ' ' Western thought is so exclusively mascu- 
line in cast and formal in its philosophy, that it has become 
terribly one-sided and barren. If it were not for the mystic 
leven of love, that, here and there, now and then, has softened 
its rudeness and added a little affection and color to its men- 
tality, the Western mind would be a dreary desert and look 
like barren rocks. And the pity is, the West believes itself 
superior. 

The names given to Deity by the ancients were always 



TEH 175 

descriptions of the character of their deity, such as they per- 
ceived it. In conformity to that practice, I shall give Teh the 
sense of "the eternally femine," the sense of "a power that 
makes for righteousness,' ' the sense of " providence/ ' the sense 
of "cosmic process,' ' the sense of "moral force/ ' the sense of 
"mother,' ' besides all the other senses already given the word. 
The reason for these many names of Teh or senses given 
to Teh is this, that Teh is as an old saw says a soul and a light 
that reveals all things, but hides itself from sight. All the world 
sees by Teh, but never saw Teh. 

"I find thee, Most High, where'er my glance I send, 

At the beginning Thee ; Thee also at the end. 

If towards the source I fly, in Thee 't is lost to me. 

The outlet would I spy, — that, too, breaks forth from Thee. 

Thou the beginning art, that doth its end enclose. 

Thou art the end that back to the beginning flows. 

And in the midst art Thou, and all things are in Thee, 

And I am I, because Thou art the midst in me. ' ' 3 

According to the Tao-Teh-King, the relationship of Tao and 
Teh is something like this: "If Tao perishes," it is said, "then 
Teh will also perish. ' ' Teh is called the manifestation of Tao, 
and, Tao cannot be reached except by means of Teh. Teh is 
multiform, but Tao is a unit. These two ideas, that Teh is 
the manifestation of Tao and is multiform, explain the syn- 
chretism of the Teh. All virtue is necessarily manifold and ever 
varying. In one moment it is heavenward and a worthship; 
in the next it is earthward or love to the neighbor. These two 
ideas of "manifestation" and "multiformity" explain the great 
variety of names and descriptions of Teh already given. In 
one place it is said that Tao is the Lord of Teh, but nowhere 
does any commentary explain in what that lordship consists. 
Whatever it does mean, it does not mean that Tao is superior 
to Teh, because Tao does not and cannot exist without Teh. 

It will not do to call Tao the masculine and Teh the femi- 
nine principle of existence, because the Tao-Teh-King not only 
does not do it, but knows both Yang and Yin and calls them the 
masculine and feminine principles. If Tao and Teh are related 
to Yang and Yin, then it must be as superior spiritual principles 
behind them and it is in this sense that I take Teh, when I call 
it "the eternally feminine." 

'Friedrich Riickert: The Wisdom of the Brahmin, lv.50. Translated by C. T. 
Brooks, Boston, 1882. 



176 THE INNEE LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

It is exceedingly difficult to define Tao and Teh fully and 
satisfactory to a Western critical and intellectual mind. Both 
terms are too elastic for logic and both represent something 
universal, that cannot be put into a philosophical form. Truly 
the Tao-Teh-King declares that their nature "baffles investiga- 
tion^; but the same book also declares that if we "use" Tao 
and Teh, we shall know them. 

Thus an examination of the nature of Tao and Teh ends 
like all examinations of mystic principles ; they are beyond com- 
prehension, but ready for our use at any time and anywhere. 
The mystic principles desire incorporation; they wish to be 
placed in the human heart and to be allowed to lead man to his 
eternal good. They never mislead, however exacting they may 
be. They never teach us, as we understand teaching, but they 
are ready to lead us, and, they are always near us, yea, they 
dwell in our hearts. 

I have just said that I should give Teh the sense of "the 
eternally feminine " and the sense of "mother." These two 
senses have been given Teh by explicit language. All the other 
senses are implied in various teachings. But before I draw 
out the colors and the life that lies in the terms of the sixth 
chapter of the Tao-Teh-King on the mother-power Teh, I will 
give you a translation of it. And I will say a few words about 
the direct meaning before I apply this conception mother-power 
to Teh, for Teh is the mother-power, considered morally, out of 
which springs our whole mental, moral and spiritual life. Teh 
as the mother of all things is described in the sixth chapter as 
follows : 

"The Valley-God never dies. I call it the Mother of the 
Abyss and she is the Root of Heaven-Earth (or the All-things.) 
She endures forever, and forever she produces." 

I might have disposed of this short chapter by saying that 
this Valley-God is the same as sakti, as deva matri, but I should 
then have been reading Brahminical ideas and modern methods 
into Chinese Theosophy and that would have been a false com- 
mentary. It has been done by others, I am sorry to say. 

I will admit, that the root idea of the Tao-Teh-King^ de- 
scription is probably physical and sexual. So much in the East 
begins that way. So much in the East is cast mainly in pre- 
historic forms, and only too many of modern students of East- 
ern lore stick in these forms. 

While the signs and forms of the Tao-Teh-King are often 
physical and sexual, simply because the writer had no other 



THE VALLEY-GOD 177 

means at hand for his use, these signs and forms of the Tao- 
Teh-King always bear a high and noble, a spiritual and trans- 
cendental signification, and are so understood by genuine Tao- 
ists. In this case, "the Valley-God" cannot mean anything 
else than Teh or Virtue. The sign for Valley-Spirit is a double 
one. It is composed of ku and sen. 

The sign for ku is a mouth out of which flows water, hence 
it is a sign for valley, but simply for a valley without a stream. 
To indicate that the valley gives out water, the sign sen is added, 
which indicates that the valley is living. That is the way the 
Chinese commentator understands it. For short, the signs is 
a name for the activity of Teh in all the realms of its operation. 
But the realistic conception connected with the term must not 
be ignored. There is such an one in it, which is evident from 
the fact that Laotzse also calls it "nourishing mother" (ss'i-mu). 

A prominent Taoist and philosopher, Liet-tsi (400 B. C), 
declares Laotzse 's teaching and words to be cited from the books 
of the fabled King Hoang-ti (about 27 Cent. B. C). If so, 
then the meaning of the sign and term would be physical and 
sexual. Be this declaration of Liet-tsi so or not, we cannot 
prove or deny the allegation. The word ku-sen means now 
the "emanating spirit" or "the out flowing spirit," indicating 
the invisible power behind all objective appearances, or, in other 
words, the spiritual or invisible mother of all things already 
mentioned in the opening chapter of the book. 

The chapter on the valley-god already given in translation 
divides itself naturally into three thoughts. The first relates 
to the valley-god as the original power through which as the 
mysterious mother all things come forth; the second thought 
relates to the valley-god as the root of heaven and earth special- 
ly; and the third thought is this that these two already men- 
tioned do not exist separately but are really one, and, it has 
been suggested by the German commentator, Strausz, that these 
two in union correspond to Chokma of the Old Testament, to the 
Idea of Plato, to Sophia of the Gnostics and the Magic of Jacob 
Bohme. I think the suggestion an admirable one. I would 
add that the two in union also correspond to Sephira, mother 
of the Sephiroth, of the Kabbalah. 

It would be very interesting to work out the details of these 
correspondences, but space and time forbid it, at present. I 
wish to bring Teh down to the level of our own daily life and 
individual existence. That will be more practical and useful, 
at present. 



178 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

Let me now apply this f ourfoldness of Teh to you and my- 
self and try to find out our exact place in the temple, and thereby 
necessarily the work we can and must do in that universal 
ministry of Teh to which we all without exception are called. 

If we find ourselves individually of a warm and pure red 
blood condition; if our blood is not loaded with foreign sub- 
stances, but readily heals a wound ; if our nerves are in a corre- 
sponding healthy condition and neither "cracked" nor weak; if 
we enjoy to live and to be active in great and good work and do 
a work for the benefit of mankind, not merely because we are 
paid for it or profit by it in some way, but do such a work be- 
cause we find our call in it and an innermost satisfaction in doing 
it ; then, I say, we are Life people, people of the apostolic temper, 
workers in the universal ministry. Our genius is activity and 
it will be a sin for us to be unfaithful. Our place on the Diagram 
and in the temple is readily seen. We know what Teh wants 
of us. 

If we are introspective of disposition ; if we always are in- 
clined to look behind a phenomenon to see its spirit, if possible ; 
if the blue sky draws us out of ourselves and robs us of the solid 
ground under our feet; if things and persons do not appear to 
our souls like the seeming solid things our senses declare them 
to be; if we are disinclined for all kinds of "small talk," "gos- 
sip, ' ' or the like, but from time to time are moved by a mighty 
impulse to "speak out," to "witness," to give testimony in the 
name of the Highest; then, we are of the prophetic temper, or 
at least poets or philosophers. Our genius is clearly spirit and 
our work in the universal ministry so clearly marked off for us 
that we never can mistake it. We know our place on the Dia- 
gram and in the temple. We know what Teh wants of us. 

If our hearts bleed at the sight of human misery, both physi- 
cal and spiritual ; if we burn to go out into the world to preach 
the glad tidings that there is hope for all, even the deepest 
fallen ; if we proclaim that hope in love to mankind and without 
any condemnation, not even with reproach; if we cheerfully 
stand abuse, even stripes and never lose courage in our work; 
if we persist in working for others as if they were our own rela- 
tives, though separated from us by race or color or enmity ; then, 
I say, we are of the evangelistic temper. Our genius is clearly 
Love and nobody can do the work laid out for us in our ministry 
as well as we can. We know our place in the temple and what 
Teh wants of us. 

If we are disposed to teach and take care, to lead and to 



THE SPIRIT OF TEH 179 

guide, and be a daily and hourly sacrifice of which others take 
freely and eat, never even realizing that they torture us ; if we 
have a patience that never wearies over repetitions and monot- 
ony; if compensation is never thought of; if we run after the 
lost sheep, comfort the obstinate ones, and bear over with the 
unreasonable ; then, our work in the temple of humanity is pas- 
toral teaching and we are indeed pillars in the sanctuary of Teh. 

It is evident that this last group of sanctified tempers and 
human beings are those who live with determination (see Dia- 
gram II.). That the first group described (the apostolic) is living 
in the Whole is self-evident. I hardly need to say that the 
prophetic temper as described is the light bearer of beauty, and 
that the evangelistic temper is a real incarnation of goodness. 

Let none try to stifle their own conscience and say that they 
have not felt any motion in the direction of the four forms men- 
tioned. They do not speak the truth, ignorantly or wilfully. All 
feel the motions of Teh! The Tao-Teh-King (LI) declares "To 
produce and not possess — to act and not expect — to enlarge and 
not control — that is Teh. ' ' If such people have not felt the draw- 
ings of Teh under such forms as those I have described, they 
have felt them under other forms. Perhaps the four to them 
should be named, God, Eeason, Nature, Highest Life; perhaps 
they should be named Eight, Justice, Love, Eeciprocity of life; 
perhaps they should be named as on Diagram I. No matter how 
they are named. Each age has named them differently, but each 
age has known the fact that Teh manifests itself in a temple 
square or human individuality. Not only each age knows the 
fact, but the fact presents itself to each individual, even to those 
who cannot express the fact or translate the moving power into 
words. 

No man is sufficient for himself. Life is so constituted that 
we need reservoirs of every kind of excellence, of intelligence, 
of knowledge, of power. The four forms are such reservoirs in 
which Teh is present and they are for us to draw from, both to 
live by and to work by. 

Now in which ever of these four groups our work may lie, 
it is the spirit of Teh, the Great Mother, that works that temper 
in us. And to be in Truth, we must obey, yea we wish to obey 
and we do obey as surely as the water runs out of the valley. 
You remember the sign of ku-sen, the great symbol of Teh ! 

I say it is Teh that both works in us and wishes to work in 
us, and, if we amount to anything at all in the universal ministry 
to which we all are called by Teh, even while we still struggle 



180 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

on the Path, then we show eagerness to do that work as we say 
"with a will"; we do it determinedly and that eagerness proves 
what we amonnt to. 

This is Teh and teaching about Teh. And Teh now wit- 
nesses within each one of ns for or against us, according to the 
truth in which we stand in this matter. 

There is a spurious Biblical phrase which reads, "It is a 
terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God. ' f It may 
be spurious as regards the Bible, but this I say, "It is a terrible 
thing to fall into the hands of Teh" for those who are unfaithful. 
It can only mean destruction. 

I said in the beginning of this chapter that the fourfold life 
of Teh corresponded to similar powers within our constitution 
and that this corresponding fourfoldness made it not only possi- 
ble but easy to live with determination in the Whole, the Good, 
the True and the Beautiful. 

I have shown you the corresponding forms, both the inner 
in yourself and the outer in Teh's universal life, and, I have 
said that Teh works spontaneously in us all, because Teh is a 
river of active goodness or virtue that flows into the world from 
out a valley, which is called the Abyss of Abysses. It is now for 
you and me to live up to this light and make ourselves living 
realizations of that stupendous fact. 

Terstegen was a Dutch mystic. As a mystic, he is especially 
remarkable on account of his intuitive perceptions of the mo- 
tions of the Spirit, of Teh such as I have defined Teh. Here 
are a few lines from his poetry describing these motions of Teh : 
"Hath not each heart a passion and a dream — 

Each, some companionship forever sweet — 
And each, in saddest skies some silver gleam — 

And each, some passing joy too faint and fleet — 
And each, a staff and stay, though frail it prove — 
And each, a face he fain would ever see ? ' ' 
These are some of the beckonings of Teh, that come to all. 
He finally asks : 

i i And what have 1 1 — a glory and a calm, 
A life that is an everlasting psalm, 
A heaven of endless joy in Thee," that is Teh. 
Terstegen thus declares that Teh is an "everlasting pres- 
ence " and an endless joy. 

May that be your lot! You shall then know that all this 
about Teh is of the Inner Life. 



A SHAWNEE TALE 

XII 

IN the last chapter, I introduced and discussed several new 
subjects, necessarily leaving a great deal for this and the 
following chapters. The subjects were Teh, the human 

temple, our temperaments, and the work we are called to 
do both on the Path and in the Universal Ministry for the benefit 
of our fellowmen. 

I shall now continue the same subjects and endeavor to 
explain certain important aspects of them by means of a folklore 
tale from our American plains. Strange as it may appear, the 
story I shall read contains the most valuable material for a 
study of Teh and a life on the Path, the life of regeneration. 

The story I shall read is a Shawnee tale, and I give it as told 
in Schoolcraft's "Algic researches" under the title of "The 
Celestial Sisters. ' ' The book is now scarce. Inner evidences 
and the undisputed veracity of Schoolcraft is sufficient evidence 
against any charge or suspicion of a manipulation of the story, 
in the interest of romance or continuity or spiritual symbolism. 
This is the story. 

The Celestial Sisteks. 

Waupee, or the White Hawk, lived in a remote part of the 
forest, where animals abounded. Every day he returned from 
the chase with a large spoil, for he was one of the most skillful 
and lucky of hunters of his tribe. His form was like the cedar ; 
the fire of youth beamed from his eye ; there was no forest too 
gloomy for him to penetrate, and no track made by bird or 
beast of any kind which he could not readily follow. 

One day he had gone beyond any point which he had ever 
before visited. He traveled through an open wood, which 
enabled him to see a great distance. At length he beheld a 



182 THE INNER LITE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

light breaking through the foliage of the distant trees, which 
made him sure that he was on the borders of a prairie. It 
was a wide plain, covered with long blue grass, and enameled 
with flowers of a thousand lovely tints. 

After walking for some time without a path, musing upon 
the open country, and enjoying the fragrant breeze, he suddenly 
came to a ring worn among the grass and the flowers, as if it 
had been made by footsteps moving lightly round and round. 
But it was strange, so strange as to cause the White Hawk 
to pause and gaze long and fixedly upon the ground, there was 
no path which led to this flowery circle. There was not even 
a crushed leaf nor a broken twig, nor the least trace of a foot- 
step, approaching or retiring, to be found. He thought he 
would hide himself and lie in wait to discover, if he could, what 
this strange circle meant. 

Presently he heard the faint sounds of music in the air. 
He looked up in the direction they came from, and as the magic 
notes died away he saw a small object, like a little summer cloud 
that approaches the earth, floating down from above. At first 
it was very small, and seemed as if it could have been blown 
away by the first breeze that came along; but it rapidly grew 
as he gazed upon it, and the music every moment came clearer 
and more sweetly to his ear. As it neared the earth it appeared 
as a basket, and it was filled with twelve sisters, of the most 
lovely forms and enchanting beauty. 

As soon as the basket touched the ground they leaped out, 
and began straightway to dance, in the most joyous manner, 
around the magic ring, striking, as they did so, a shining ball, 
which uttered the most ravishing melodies, and kept time as they 
danced. 

The White Hawk, from his concealment, entranced, gazed 
upon their graceful forms and movements. He admired them 
all, but he was most pleased with the youngest. He longed to 
be at her side, to embrace her, to call her his own; and unable 
to remain longer a silent admirer, he rushed out and endeavored 
to seize this twelfth beauty who so enchanted him. But the 
sisters, with the quickness of birds, the moment they descried 
the form of a man, leaped back into the basket, and were drawn 
up into the sky. 

Lamenting his ill-luck, Waupee gazed longingly upon the 
fairy basket as it ascended and bore the lovely sisters from his 
view. ' ' They are gone, ' ' he said, ' i and I shall see them no more. ' ' 



A SHAWNEE TALB 183 

He returned to his solitary lodge, but he found no relief to 
his mind. He walked abroad, but to look at the sky, which 
had withdrawn from his sight the only being he had ever loved, 
was painful to him now. 

The next day, selecting the same hour, the White Hawk 
went back to the prairie, and took his station near the ring; in 
order to deceive the sisters, he assumed the form of an opossum, 
and sat among the grass as if he were there engaged in chewing 
the cud. He had not waited long when he saw the cloudy 
basket descend, and heard the same sweet music falling as 
before. He crept slowly toward the ring; but the instant the 
sisters caught sight of him they were startled, and sprang into 
their car. It rose a short distance when one of the older sisters 
spoke : 

" Perhaps/ ' she said, "it is come to show us how the game 
is played by mortals/ ' 

"Oh no," the youngest replied; "quick, let us ascend." 

And all joining in a chant, they rose out of sight. 

Waupee, casting off his disguise, walked sorrowfully back 
to his lodge, but ah, the night seemed very long to lonely 
White Hawk ! His whole soul was filled with the thought of the 
beautiful sister. 

Betimes, the next day, he returned to the haunted spot, hop- 
ing and fearing, and sighing as though his very soul would 
leave his body in its anguish. He reflected upon the plan he 
should follow to secure success. He had already failed twice; 
to fail a third time would be fatal. Near by he found an old 
stump, much covered with moss, and just then in use as the 
residence of a number of mice, who had stopped there on a 
pilgrimage to some relatives on the other side of the prairie. 
The White Hawk was so pleased with their tidy little forms that 
he thought he, too, would be a mouse, especially as they were by 
no means formidable to look at, and would not be at all likely to 
create alarm. 

He accordingly, having first brought the stump and set it 
near the ring, without further notice became a mouse, and 
peeped and sported about, and kept his sharp little eyes busy 
with the others ; but he did not forget to keep one eye up toward 
the sky, and one ear wide open in the same direction. 

It was not long before the sisters, at their customary hour, 
came down and resumed their sport. 

"But see," cried the young sister, "that stump was not 
there before." 



184 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

She ran off, frightened, toward the basket. Her sisters only 
smiled, and gathering round the old tree-stump, they struck it, 
in jest, when out ran the mice, and among them Waupee. They 
killed them all but one, which was pursued by the young sister. 
Just as she had raised a silver stick which she held in her hand 
to put an end to it, too, the form of the White Hawk arose, 
and he clasped his prize in his arms. The other eleven sprang 
to their basket, and were drawn up to the skies. 

Waupee exerted all his skill to please his bride and win her 
affections. He wiped the tears from her eyes ; he related his 
adventures in the chase ; he dwelt upon the charms of life on the 
earth. He was constant in his attentions, keeping fondly by 
her side, and picking out the way, for her to walk as he led her 
gently toward his lodge. He felt his heart glow with joy as he 
entered it, and from that moment he was one of the happiest 
of men. 

Winter and summer passed rapidly away, and as the spring 
drew near with its balmy gales and its many-colored flowers, 
their happiness was increased by the presence of a beautiful boy 
in their lodge. What more of earthly blessing was there for 
them to enjoy? 

Waupee 's wife was a daughter of one of the stars; and as 
the scenes of earth began to pall upon her sight, she sighed to 
revisit her father. But she was obliged to hide these feelings 
from her husband. She remembered the charm that would carry 
her up, and while White Hawk was engaged in the chase, she 
took occasion to construct a wicker basket, which she kept con- 
cealed. In the meantime, she collected such rarities from the 
earth as she thought would please her father, as well as the most 
dainty kinds of food. 

One day when Waupee was absent and all was in readiness, 
she went out to the charmed ring, taking with her her little son. 
As they entered the car she commenced her magical song, and the 
basket rose. The song was sad, and lowly and mournful, and 
as it was wafted far away by the wind, it caught her husband's 
ear. It was a voice which he well knew and he instantly ran to 
the prairie. Though he made breathless speed, he could not 
reach the ring before his wife and child had ascended beyond his 
reach. He lifted up his voice in loud appeals, but they were 
unavailing. The basket still went up. He watched it till it 
became a small speck, and finally it vanished in the sky. He 
then bent his head down to the ground, and was miserable. 



A SHAWNEE TALE 185 

Through a long winter and a long summer Waupee bewailed 
his loss, but he found no relief. The beautiful spirit had come 
and gone, and he should see it no more ! 

He mourned his wife's loss sorely, but his son's still more; 
for the boy had both the mother's beauty and the father's 
strength. 

His wife had reached her home in the stars, and in the 
blissful employments of her father's house she had almost for- 
gotten that she had left a husband upon the earth. But her son, 
as he grew up, resembled more and more his father, and every 
day he was restless and anxious to visit the scene of his birth. 
His grandfather said to his daughter, one day: 

"Go, my child, and take your son down to his father, and 
ask him to come up and live with us. But tell him to bring 
along a specimen of each kind of bird and animal he kills in the 
chase." 

She accordingly took the boy and descended. The White 
Hawk, who was ever near the enchanted spot, heard her voice 
as she came down from the sky. His heart beat with impatience 
as he saw her form and that of his son, and they were soon 
clasped in his arms. 

He heard the message of the Star, and he began to hunt 
with the greatest activity, that he might collect the present with 
all dispatch. He spent whole nights, as well as days, in searching 
for every curious and beautiful animal and bird. He only pre- 
served a foot, a wing, or a tail of each. 

When all was ready, Waupee visited once more each favor- 
ite spot — the hill-top when he had been used to see the rising 
sun; the stream where he had sported as a boy; the old lodge, 
now looking sad and solemn, which he was to sit in no more; 
and last of all, coming to the magic circle, he gazed widely 
around him with tearful eyes, and, taking his wife and child by 
the hand, they entered the car and were drawn up — into a 
country far beyond the flight of birds, or the power of mortal 
eye to pierce. 

This is the story. 

I would indeed like to dwell minutely upon all the details 
of the rich symbolism of the story, but that would lead beyond 
the limits of my present discourses on the Inner Life and the 
Tao-Teh-King. I must therefore take only the salient features 
of the story and they happen to be just the very details, that I 
need to explain how Teh comes to us; what Wu-Wei is and 



186 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

how our temperaments are to be ruled and turned into use for 
the spiritual life. 

Now then, to the application. 

First about Waupee. He is plainly what we ordinarily call 
"the natural man"; a fine specimen of human possibilities, but 
he is not on the Path as yet. He is truly a man of tempera- 
ments, both as these are potentially in themselves and also as 
hindrances to spiritual life. The natural man is seen in the 
hunter and his skill. The un-free man is also seen in this same 
skillful man, who at first is only killing such passions and dis- 
positions as he meets with in the forest of his own spiritual 
wilderness. It is not till he, as the story has it, on the third 
day comes upon the Open that he enters upon the larger life. 
He passes through three degrees of development before he is 
ready to concentrate upon the one object in his life. On the 
first day he discovers that there is an "opening" and on the 
next he, like the natural man, who knows nothing about "Wu 
Wei" or "non-action," fails because his very temperamental 
strength and natural excellence is in his way. His faults are 
these, he hides and lies in wait; he rushes out to seize the 
youngest sister; he plays possum; these are temperamental 
faults, but perfectly natural on his part. He, an Indian, could 
not be expected to act otherwise. His whole character is deter- 
mined by his natural will and by his training. His actions are 
simply forms of his habits. The only hope we can see for him 
in the story, and, before we learn of the trick of the mice, is 
his boldness, his frankness and courage. He is not a weakling, 
either in soul or body. He is full of determination, and in 
those traits appear the first rudiments of the future spiritual 
man. Though the conflicts that arise within him at the sight 
of the sister threaten to destroy him, the very conflict is the 
sign of coming freedom. 

And how does he finally succeed? After having tried sev- 
eral kinds of direct methods for the attainment of his object and 
failed, he becomes a mouse and is about to be destroyed, and 
then he succeeds, that is, he becomes humble, so humble that 
he is no more than a mouse. Could an Indian well conceive of an 
animal more insignificant, even more contemptible than a mouse! 
And when he is about to be destroyed he has reached the very 
point of "non-action," or Wu Wei, which he, and all of us must 
reach before we embrace the heavenly maiden, Teh. Teh comes 
out of Wu Wei, "non-action"; Teh is taken possession of in Wu 



QUIETISM 187 

Wei ' * non-action ' ' ; and Teh really is Wu Wei, " non-action/ ' 
and thus the very soul of the story, the motive force of all that 
takes place. 

And here for the present, I must drop Waupee as a subject 
and talk about Wu Wei. Waupee and his history is not my main 
subject. He is only an illustration. The main subject is Wu 
Wei and the ideas connected with that conception. 

In my last chapter, I have treated Teh from the universal 
point of view. Now I came to Teh as the sum total of practical 
virtue or Wu Wei, as it is called in the Tao-Teh-King. It is of 
greatest importance that we should get a clear understanding 
of that term, not only because an understanding of the moral 
tendency of the whole book depends upon it, but also because 
Wu Wei represents the wisdom of all ages on how to begin to 
travel on the Path, and how to continue on the Path, and on how 
to be identified with the Path. 

The word in literal translation is this: "Wu" means "not 
having"; "to be destitute of"; "Wei" means "small," "fading 
away," "bodiless," "secret," or, put together in Wu Wei we 
get the conception, "not doing," "non-action," "non-assertion." 
That is the literal signification of the two words. 

Based upon this literal translation of the two Chinese signs, 
we may establish the doctrine which we in the West call Quiet- 
ism, and which also exists under the name of Wu Wei in China, 
though not elaborated so definitely as it was in Southern Europe 
by John of the Cross, Molinos, Teresa, Madam Guyon, Fenelon, 
and among the Germans by Angelus Silecious, and many others. 

Quietism means first of all, resignation and absolute sub- 
jection under the Universal Will; but this is not its main char- 
acteristics; in resignation and absolute subjection it resembles 
all other mysticism. It is also a passive and receptive mode 
of receiving a divine influx and making little or nothing of 
activity in religious matters, whether ceremonial or moral. In 
this respect it is known to the Tao-Teh-King and implied in 
the word Wu Wei! Next, Quietism has been practiced as a 
disinterested love for a personal god. In this last form it is 
not known in China, simply because the Tao-Teh-King knows no 
personal God. It is the form especially practiced by Madam 
Guyon, Molinos and Fenelon. Practical forms of Quietism, 
such as the form among the Quakers, is also implied in Wu Wei. 
Forms of Quietism which have run into extremes of Pietism are 
unknown to Wu Wei and Tao-Teh-King. This is enough about 
Quietism and Wu Wei in general. 



188 THE INNEK LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

If you wish a literary and poetic interpretation, but no 
translation of Wu Wei, I can recommend no better than that 
little charming book by Henri Borel called "Wu Wei, a phan- 
tasy based on the philosophy of Laotzse." It is indeed the 
cream of the Tao-Teh-King, and if you read that you can get 
no better practical insight into the mind of the Tao-Teh-King 
and Laotzse. If you can absorb the sense of BorePs book, you 
may forget all these twelve chapters of mine and you shall find 
that you have lost nothing but the husks that covered the nut. 

As I said, this is enough about Wu Wei in general. I will 
now go into details. Wu Wei defined as a principle for the 
"conduct of life" means "non-interference," "non-exertion," 
"not-doing," "masterly inactivity"; that is, we must discard 
all thoughts of helping nature in her work. It is laid down 
as a sine qua non (LXIII.) "Act non-action. Be occupied with 
non-occupation. Taste the tasteless. Find your great in what 
is little, and your many in the few. ' ' 

This is metaphysical. But the same chapter says also, "Re- 
compense injury with kindness. ' ' That savors of the New Testa- 
ment and is intensely practical and useful in real life. It is said 
in Chapter LXXIX, "to let matters rest will be found to be the 
best way. Therefore, the wise man takes care of his own part 
of the compact and exacts nothing of others"; and "he who 
undertakes to do the work for the Great Architect rarely fails 
to cut his own hands." It is so hard for people to learn that 
to be passionless and motionless does not mean stupidity and 
mental or spiritual ruin, but the contrary. Eigid inactivity 
frees a man from entanglements and bad karma. All efforts 
defeat themselves, because they are efforts and not spontaneous 
actions. Wu Wei means "non-interference" in politics as well 
as in people's personal affairs. The Taoist demands that the 
people be left to develop their own resources. Conformity to 
nature will bring best results. In my next chapter I shall 
speak of Wu Wei in Chinese politics and ancient history. 

The metaphysics of Wu Wei or "non-action" is this, that 
"emptiness" or "vacancy" or "space," words which also cor- 
rectly translate Wu Wei, is not a negative force, but a most 
positive one; one, of which it is said (V) that "though empty, 
it never collapses, and the more it is exercised the more it 
brings forth." Emptiness is even called "the abyss-mother," 
which is "the root of heaven and earth"; because the sage, the 
holy man, the mystic, employs "emptiness" as a working prin- 



189 

ciple (VII.), and as lie "puts himself last, he is first; aban- 
doning himself, he is preserved. ' ' 

To get at the full meanings of "emptiness" or " vacancy' ' 
or "space" as a translation of Wu Wei I mnst come back to 
the term Ku-sen as I explained it in the last chapter. Ku means 
literally a valley, that is, the space or empty room enclosed 
by hills ; not the valley as it appears to the eye or as civilization 
uses it for railroads or cities. It is the cosmic emptiness 
symbolized, but not marked off by mountain ridges. It is taught 
(XL) : "thirty spokes unite in one nave, and by that part 
which is non-existent (that is, the hole in the center of the nave) 
it is useful for a carriage wheel. Clay is moulded into vessels 
and by their hollowness they are useful as vessels. Roofs and 
floors, doors and windows, are arranged in such a way that they 
make a house by the hollowness they produce. ' ' 

You understand then that it is the hole in the nave that 
represents but does not constitute the essential of the wheel, 
that the space inside of the clay walls represents but does not 
constitute the essential of the vessels, and that the hollow 
space of the room stands for the real part of the house. Of 
course it is so, because the number of spokes, or their length, 
is certainly immaterial to the main office which the wheel is to 
serve as a wheel ; and it is immaterial whether the vessel is made 
of clay or silver ; whether it is round or square or oblong. The 
main thing is that it can contain something, and the same is the 
case as regards the house. In the Tao-Teh-King much is made 
of this vacuum, this emptiness, this hollow space and that ten- 
dency is thoroughly oriental and mystic. 

That which Laotzse here illustrates by realistic terms, 
Buddha also illustrated and in his own characteristic way. In 
the Milinda Panha there is reported a conversation between 
the Buddhist sage Nagasena and King Milinda, which runs as 
follows. The sage tells the king: "My fellow-priests address 
me as Nagasena, but that is merely a name, for I am no inde- 
pendent ego-entity, no atman." Tne king replies: "If you 
are no ego-entity, pray tell me who it is that acts, that eats, 

that drinks, that thinks V 9 And the king continues to 

ask if Nagasena is hair, nails, lungs, sensation, perception or 
consciousness, and receives a denial to all his questions. Finally 
the king comes to the natural conclusion that he fails to discover 
any Nagasena; that Nagasena is an empty sound and at last 
declares : ' i Venerable Sir, you speak a falsehood, a lie. There is 
no Nagasena." 



190 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

Then comes the turning of the tables. The sage asks the 
king if he came in a chariot or on foot, and the king answers: 
"I came in a chariot." Nagasena then asks: "What is a char- 
iot.' ' Is it the axle, the wheels, the box, the yoke or the reins? 
The king answers no! to all the questions and Nagasena then 
declares : " I fail to see any chariot. The word chariot is an 
empty sound. Your majesty speaks a falsehood, a lie. There 
is no chariot.' ' The king defends himself and says: "Vener- 
able Sir; I speak no lie; the word ' chariot' is only a way of 
speaking, a term, a name for that which is made up of pole, axle, 
box, wheels." Nagasena now draws the conclusion he has been 
waiting to make, which is, that in an absolute sense there is 
really no more person or chariot than the unity that is made by 
the combination of the various phenomenal parts that go to make 
a person or a chariot. In other words a person, a chariot, is 
no reality, but only a name for a combination. 

In Plato the same problem was discussed under the form 
of i ' the One and the Many. ' ' In the Middle Ages, it was again 
discussed in Scholasticism and the problem was called "Nomi- 
nalism and Eealism." Both with Plato and in Scholasticism 
the result was the same as in Buddhism, that is, the thing is 
not real, and the name we give it is a name merely and not 
an equivalent expression for reality. All mystics and Inner 
Life people hold that the Eeal is not known and that which we 
call real is only a name for a mystery. The mystery cannot 
be known, but may be communed with in the Inner Life. 

When Laotzse uses the illustration of the valley, the hole in 
the nave, he means to lead the thoughts from the phenomenal 
to the real ; from the name of the thing to that which in earlier 
chapters I denned as Simplicity and Stillness. 

In our own conception we approach this idea of emptiness, 
vacuity, when we say for instance "beauty unadorned is most 
adorned." A human body can never be truly represented in 
its native beauty except by its nakedness. 

The older mystics preferred nakedness to dress while medi- 
tating, because nakedness gave them a freedom, that never can 
be attained with garments on. This, of course, may not appear 
intelligent to those who do not know what meditation and con- 
templation are. We have the same idea symbolized in the 
hermit, the yogi, who sacrifices everything in withdrawing to 
the desert. He wishes to liberate himself, that freedom from 
cares may help him to escape all trammels; he literally "emp- 



WU WEI 191 

ties" himself. But perhaps the idea of emptiness may be clear 
when I tell you that innermost in all Egyptian temples there 
was an adytum, a most holy chamber, and that that chamber 
was dark and empty — why? It was the residence of the god! 
the god resided in space and space was symbolized by empti- 
ness ! Can you see the mystery! 

Here is another illustration taken from a totally different 
sphere of life. The Japanese have tea-rooms, which they call 
the "Abodes of Vacancy." The tea-room is an empty room. 
It is absolutely empty, except for what may be placed there for 
the time being to satisfy some aesthetic mood. In its emptinesB 
the tea-room answers to the adytum or the innermost of the 
Egyptian temples, which was dark and empty. The tea-room 
gets its significance from its temporary use by visitors and 
their presence. It is nothing but emptiness in itself. The visit- 
ors give it its character; they are the main thing; the room 
itself is nothing. 

A room or its name means nothing to the Japanese mystic, 
it is its use he inquires about ; its consecration. Its name means 
nothing ; its character is the all to him. Yet a room is of course 
a room and of architectural signification whether consecrated or 
not. In the tea-room the wall decorations are landscapes, birds, 
flowers, rather than the human figure, the latter being present 
in the person of the beholder himself. How subtle that, too! 
How ingenious is not the teaching that the tea-room is for silence 
or solitude, for Man; for Presence; for the Eeal! 

In short the idea of emptiness, nakedness, is expressed. 
Nakedness, that individual truth may be revealed. Again the 
idea of isolation is expressed by the very emptiness of the room. 
Man is to learn emptiness, which in China and Japan means 
vastness or the Great Mother, Teh, the universal womb in which 
and out of which the actual comes forth. Space ig the divinity 
thought of as female. In India it is Aditi, the "boundless one" 
and sometimes Sakti. In China it is Ku-sen, the "valley spirit" 

You see how different the Oriental and mystic sanctuaries 
are from the Western and the church peoples ! Look into a real 
blue sky and you shall see how full and rich it is in its emptiness ! 
You will see how much more rational and sublime the Orientals 
are! How overwhelmingly so. No cathedral can rival them in 
their simplicity and forceful teachings. Truly said Jesus, that 
the lilies in their simplicity or nakedness or emptiness sur- 
passed Solomon in all his glory; lilies and the lotus are sane- 



192 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

tuaries on account of their very simplicity, emptiness in their 
purity, which is a sublime Nakedness. We do not obtain the 
Real by simply " having our will. ,, Obtaining the thing is not 
obtaining it at all. The object of our desire does not fascinate; 
it is the life which passes through it that fascinates. The flower 
I put in my buttonhole is a victim of my greed and cannot be 
expected to give me any real pleasure. It is the moonlight that 
bewitches, not the moon. It is beauty that elevates, not the art 
object. It is the dignity in a man that a woman submits to, not 
to the mere man. And vice versa it is the "eternally feminine" 
a real man worships, not flesh and blood. 

We are such " spaces,' ' or "emptiness," or we ought to 
empty ourselves that we may be such a room filled with the 
mysterious presence, symbolized by the Japanese Tea-room and. 
the adytum of Egyptian temples. Any and all endeavor to real- 
ize such a condition is called Wu Wei, "non-action," and you 
must have understood that it is not a negativity, that on the 
contrary it is Reality. 

Now apply these later teachings to the definitions of Wu 
Wei, given before, and you observe how the terms already used 
have expanded enormously. Literally translated they were 
merely negative terms on our ordinary plan of life, but they 
have now grown to positive statements of occult truths. Wu 
Wei is now no more "not having" nor merely Quietism and 
resignation; it is now an eternal quality, a Presence. And that 
presence is Teh. Follow the word further and see how it keeps 
on growing as we get nearer and nearer to it, by what I now 
shall state. You shall now hear why non-action, Wu Wei, is so 
highly praised in the Tao-Teh-King. 

It is because ' i The non-existent enters into all things with- 
out any crevice" (XLIII), and by non-action there is nothing 
that may not be done" (XLVIII), and "there is no sin greater 
than giving rein to desire." There is no misery greater than 
discontent" (XL VI). It is, therefore, also advised, "Shut the 
lips and close the portals of eyes and ears and as long as you 
live you will have no trouble; but open your lips and meddle 
with things and as long as you live you will not get out of 
trouble." (LII). 

All these statements would have no meaning if Wu Wei, or 
"non-action," had not become something positive. The West 
is active in its excellence : It strives for the first place by doing. 
The East is passive in its excellence ; it does not strive, it yields, 



wu wei 193 

and it attains the first place spiritually, by yielding. It is this 
latter method which the Tao-Teh-King recommends on every 
page, and calls Wu Wei, and understands to be the essence of 
Teh. 

It is difficult for the West to understand this method. The 
method of " not-doing' ' is unfortunately always understood as 
doing nothing, and that is not at all the sense of "not doing." 
And it can be truly asserted that "not doing" is the under-cur- 
rent of all spiritual life in the world. Buddhism and Christian 
Mysticism meet Taoism in teaching the same method. They 
have their own way with it, but they aim exactly at the same 
point. 

Buddhism in world-weariness tells disciples to leave the 
world and have nothing to do with it. Taoism does that, too, but 
at the same time exhorts its followers to rule the world by non- 
resistance, by subjection, by not desiring it, and, not even 
acknowledge to self that they rule it by that method. You shall 
now hear some singular teachings on that subject. Such as that 
the real world comes from something not real (that "existence 
comes from non-existence") and that "the sage manages af- 
fairs without doing anything, and conveys his instructions with- 
out the use of speech." 

The Buddha looks upon the world through the large glass 
end of the telescope and rejects all its things as insignificant, 
because he sees everything diminutively as you do when you 
look in at the large end of a telescope. Taoism looks in from 
the small glass end of the telescope and sees the "infinitely 
great," and identifies itself with it, calls it Tao and Teh and 
means thereby the Primal Force, the Absolute, Brahm (neuter), 
Buddhism comes in from one end of the bridge and Taoism from 
the other. They meet in the Middle, in the recognition that the 
bridge is not "it," but that the Middle is the Path, the way of 
"not doing." 

As it is, Buddhism produces intermediaries between G-od 
and man, real saints. Taoism by Wu Wei or non action is suit- 
able for a practical world and makes wise men, who can be in 
the world and rule it and yet not be of it, nor lost in it. A Tao- 
ist knows as much as a Buddhist about sin and sorrow and the 
illusoriness of the phenomenal world, but he does not run away 
from any of these. A Taoist knows no "Sorrows of Werther" 
and "Weltschmertz." He practices Wu Wei because he has no 
use for fraudulent phenomena; he does not shun them because 



194 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

of any pathological condition. The Taoist by Wu Wei becomes 
the sage among the unwise ; the physician among the sick and a 
teacher to those who are blind. A Buddhist cannot fight, a Tao- 
ist can ! 

And, abont "not doing' ' it shonld here be stated, that the 
Christian Mystics of the Middle Ages, had a sensible under- 
standing of it in spite of all their insane ascetic practices. They 
were intensely practical people, which they proved by their ac- 
tions during the Black Death horrors, and the papal interdict, 
details of which I must pass over for the present. This terribly 
active world of ours places a man's value on what a man does, 
not on what he is. And in overlooking quality and preferring 
quantity, we of the West have lost the best parts of life. Go 
into public institutions and, in many cases, you there find moral 
outcasts in important positions, because they can labor much. 
If you ask why the institution keeps such people, you will be 
told that the institution is soulless and therefore does not care 
about morals, but only about the amount of labor they can per- 
form. Not so in the Greater Life as lived by mystics and true 
people. To them the eternal personal value of the worker is the 
most important. They place a man's value not in what he does, 
but in what he is ; upon quality, not upon quantity. It is that 
which a man is, which makes his acts good; the deeds do not 
make the man. There is nothing to hinder a mystic from being 
active in the world. No; nothing! He will, however, not fol- 
low the world's methods. He may sell his services to the world, 
but he never sells his person or his soul or his convictions. 

Again, there is nothing the modern man will object to more 
vigorously than to be told to be quiet, to lie low, to become rec- 
onciled to things, even if they are bad. We cannot blame him. 
He has seen how church and state have frightfully misused the 
principle of quietness, and that is his reason for fears and non- 
compliance. 

Eebellion against restraint is the keynote to all that is going 
on in modern progressive society, politics, social affairs, yet I 
must maintain against all contradiction that the principle of 
Wu Wei is fundamentally right and that we shall never come 
to a true reorganization of society unless we re-adopt it ; not as 
it is preached by the hirelings of the various crafts, but as 
Nature enforces it and as the Tao-Teh-King teaches it. Nature 
everywhere calls for submission. On this subject of submit- 
ting we must persuade our fellowmen and ourselves that Wu 



wu wei 195 

Wei does not mean the ruin of ourselves and our eternal pur- 
poses and aims. It means that we must still the noise of the 
senses and the clamorous desires, which constantly are in our 
way for the attainment of truth, and we must also eliminate all 
intellectual notions. All sages, and none of them have been 
hypocrites or time-servants, have realized for themselves and 
have taught their disciples that life is only found by losing it; 
that "a man is rich in proportion to the number of things he 
can afford to let alone' ' (Thoreau) ; that desires are limitless 
and cause all our troubles; that they only create more thirst, 
as does salt water when we drink it; that our senses, our tem- 
pers, are to be used but are not to rule us, and that death fol- 
lows if they rule; that our desires sing like the Sirens of old 
and prevent our hearing "the voice of the silence," and, that 
they color the images that arise in our minds and consequently 
blurr them and their truth; that silence, solitude and lowliness 
are the soil, the sun, the air, in which spiritual life grows. All 
these facts of the spiritual life we must persuade ourselves and 
our fellowmen to learn and to submit to. They are wisdom! 
They are power ! They are Wu Wei. On none of these points 
are we expected to destroy ourselves, whether by submitting 
to the will of another or to an abstract principle. We are simply 
to bow down to wisdom, to place the individual under the uni- 
versal and no more. It ought to be easy, for as one master 
said: "the yoke is easy and the burden light." 

But let it at once be understood that Wu Wei, Quietism, is 
not merely submission, not merely a negative virtue. It is in 
itself very positive. A Quietist radiates happiness, and good 
cheer flows from him. A Quietist is never discouraged, and 
is therefore able to be a rallying point for others. A Quietist 
is resolute and never turns back from his purpose, and his pur- 
pose is always sublime. A Quietist is brave, and others have 
confidence in him. His presence inspires confidence. And 
all this because we feel his presence permeated with a deep 
power, and his nearness gives us the impression of something 
sublime. Ask anybody who has met a great soul, and they 
will tell you about the influence that comes from him. In the 
third chapter, I gave an illustration of a Quietist, in the beggar 
at the church door, who converted Tauler. 



" NON-ACTION" 
XIII. 

YOU remember that "non-action" does not mean inactiv- 
ity; doing nothing and expecting stewed chickens to 
come in through the windows, ready for the table. Wu 
Wei or * 'non-action' ' means having nothing to do with 
the incidental, the trivial, the " passing show," the phenomenal, 
and devoting oneself exclusively and with energy to the essen- 
tial and the real. Wu Wei is simply the Chinese name from 
the Tao-Teh-King for the idea and teaching found among all 
kinds of mystics, namely, that the earthly, the temporal, is a 
prison, a chain, a hindrance and an obstruction on the Path, 
and must therefore be let alone and shunned. 

How shall a Taoist attain results or do his duty to the 
world in which he lives ? The doctrine of Wu Wei does not allow 
the use of means or efforts. Taoism teaches distinctly " avoid 
activity," "dispense with the use of means" and Tao, as you 
read in another chapter, is called "nameless simplicity"; it 
teaches : 

"Simplicity without a name 

Is free from all external aim. 

With no desire, at rest and still, 

All things go right, as of their own will." 

And why should they not? The world is not ours ! Who 
set us to manage the affairs of the universe? Surely nobody! 
We cannot manage our own affairs, how much less those of the 
world's! 

The sage "takes no action" (XXIX.) because all efforts with 
a personal purpose are sure to fail. It is said (XXIX.) that 
"things" are spirit-like and cannot be got by active doing. He 
who would so win them, destroys them. He who would hold 



NON-AOTION 197 

them in his grasp, loses them." That is the way a Taoist 
does his duty and avoids cutting his hands in the world's 
machinery. Things are "spirit-like," that is, they slip out of 
our hands like elastic rubber bands and spring back with pain. 
Things, so called, are not so real as many of us think. They 
are merely centers of force and that is the reason we cannot 
"get hold of them by active doings." Things, so called, are 
time and space combinations of activities beyond our reach. We 
may and we do use these combinations, but they are only, so 
to say, loaned us ; they are not subject to us. 

We get things worth having without excessive efforts. Have 
you not observed sometimes that that which you got and which 
was of any real value to you came like a gift, not by an effort 
of yours? You called it luck, good luck, and let it pass. Was 
that quite right? You may have thought it was good karma. 
Was that enough? You may have said "God is good"; "this 
was providential." Was that a right attitude? Well, you may 
have said or thought thus, but you ought also to have with- 
drawn to solitude and silence and studied the law, which teaches 
that we get things worth having without efforts, by Wu Wei, 
and because things have their own way without regard to us; 
they crush us if we are in the way ; they lift us if we are obedi- 
ent. We live in a house not ours. We are tenants merely. 
If we adapt ourselves to the laws of this cosmic house, we 
call the world, it will be well with us. If we disobey, the land- 
lord dispossesses us. Retirement will reveal many mysteries 
of Wu Wei, of "non-action," and you cannot afford to ignore 
that law. By "non-action" or by Wu Wei, all good things are 
gotten and brought about. Strange as it seems to all of us, till 
we have experienced the fact, it is nevertheless the moral law 
of our lives. And it ought not be hard to learn to obey. 

This is the way we should live according to the Tao-Teh 
King, (LXni.), "This is the way of Tao and Teh (or the true 
path) to act without thinking of acting; to conduct affairs 
without feeling the trouble of them ; to taste without discerning 
any flavor ; to consider the small as great and the few as many 
and to recompense injury with love and kindness." If we act 
that way, we are in Teh and follow Wu Wei. This for the 
present is enough about Wu Wei in the individual life. Now, 
about Wu Wei in the public life, in the state, in politics. 

I shall now quote Laotzse and Kwangtzse on the paradis- 
iacal state of early China, a state that was a result of Wu Wei, 
and, that you may be able to get some chronological idea of 



198 THE INNEB LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

the time when that state existed, I will tell you what European 
scholars have found out regarding early Chinese chronology and 
history. 

Chinese history, before 771 B. C. or up to about 150 years 
before Laotzse, is nothing but a record of internal feuds between 
many and various states or settlements, and, toward the end of 
that period, a record of striving for the establishment of an 
empire, which is finally established in 771 B. C. The next 
period of history, from 771 B. C. to 221 B. C, is a period 
of struggle for the total extinction of feudal power, which is 
finally extinguished totally in 221 B. C. by the first emperor of 
Tsin. Before all this lies a period of " paradise," if I may 
so call it, and most of that which Laotzse says about the 
" people of ancient days," relates to that period which, gen- 
erally speaking, I should say was at least three to four thousand 
years ago, counting back from to-day. 

We are told in the Tao-Teh-King that Tao, as Teh, ruled 
the world at first and at that time the world was in a paradisia- 
cal state. Taoists do not tell us how long it lasted, but Laotzse 
says (XVIII.), it lasted till "Tao ceased to be observed," and 
"Kwang-tzse explains what this means. He calls that age "the 
age of Perfect Virtue" or "the age of Teh" and describes it as 
follows: "In that age, they attached no value to knowledge and 
did not employ men of action (soldiers or police). Superiors 
were no more than the higher branches of a tree; and the 
people lived freely in the Open. They were upright and cor- 
rect, without knowing that to be so was to be righteous; they 
loved one another, without knowing that to be real goodness; 
they were honest, without knowing that to be loyalty; they ful- 
filled their engagements, without knowing that to do so, was 
to act in good faith; in their daily life they employed the ser- 
vices of one another without thinking that they were conferring 
or receiving gifts. Because they lived that way we cannot find 
any trace of their actions and no records of their affairs' and 
that is all in their favor and to their glory." These people 
lived in Wu Wei and were full of Teh. Let me call them simple- 
minded in the best sense of that phrase. Kwang-tzse gives 
several other descriptions of "the age of perfect virtue," but 
this will be sufficient for the present. I will only mention that 
he tells us that people in those days did not form themselves 
into castes and classes of social distinctions ; they were all alike 
and lived according to nature ; they were, as he said, ' c on terms 



THE SIMPLE LIFE 199 

of equality with all creatures, as forming one family." Surely 
we are far remote from any such state of nature to-day ! 

Let me warn you! you must not take this description to 
mean that the early Chinese were savages, as some scientists 
and sociologists will explain that state to be. These people 
were far from savagery, if ever their ancestors had been sav- 
ages. They were tillers of the soil and knew the loom. Such 
people are not savages. The loom is sufficient evidence that 
they were not savages. Savages do not know the loom and 
cannot weave. They were simple. Theirs was the simple 
life; they did not talk it, they lived it. 

The reason why "the simple life" was lost, says Kwang- 
tzse, as you heard, was that the people began to aim at "know- 
ledge" rather than life, and at that which later was called 
"culture." (On this subject, of culture as a hindrance to 
spiritual life, I have already spoken in an earlier chapter.) 

Laotzse and Kwang-tzse again and again repeat that the 
sage (I.) constantly tries to keep the people without "know- 
ledge" and without desire, and, where there are those who 
have "knowledge," to keep them from acting their own will, 
and where there are those who have will, to weaken it. In 
chapter VII. Laotzse points to Heaven and Earth as patterns 
for the sage. They have no personal or private ends; they 
do not seek "knowledge" or cultivate desires. Nature in all 
movements is placid and contented (like water) and not self- 
conscious. Of this I have also spoken in an earlier chapter. 

Kwang-tzse tells a grim story of how men came to lose 
themselves in culture, so called: "The ruler of the southern 
ocean was named "The Hasty" and he of the northern "Heed- 
less." The ruler of the center was named "Chaos." "Heed- 
less" and "Hasty" met often with "Chaos" and were treated 
well. They consulted together how they might repay his kind- 
ness and said : ' ' Men have all seven orifices for purposes of the 
senses, such as seeing, hearing, but this poor ruler has none. Let 
us try and make them for him. Accordingly they cut one orifice 
in him every day and at the end of the seven days Chaos died." 
Fitting Chaos with senses and thereby with desires, they killed 
him. 

About the government by the sage, the Tao-Teh-King (III.), 
says that it consists in "emptying the heart of the people," 
that is, of desires, and in "weakening the will of the people," 
that is, "the will to live," Tanha. By such "non-action noth- 
ing is ungoverned," and why? Because Tao and Teh then 



200 THE INNEE LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

govern. It is the interference of the governor, be he imperial 
or democratic, in the affairs that hinders the actions of Tao 
and Teh. And this has been the general rule, for the better 
and the worse in the Chinese empire and elsewhere. 

And so it is to-day. And Laotzse's advice (XIX.) is a 
good one to-day. It was: "Abandon your saintliness (that is 
a hint to preachers) ; put away your cleverness (that is a hint 
to so-called statesmen), and the people would be benefitted a 
hundredfold. Abandon your charity and put away your right- 
eousness and people would become more brotherly and more 
kind; put away your riches and scheming and there will be no 
robbers or frauds (that is a hint to those who establish chari- 
ties, like universities, hospitals, museums, after they have 
amassed enormous wealth by robbery of all kinds.) " Culture is 
insufficient for the highest purpose: 

"Hold fast to that which will endure, 
Show thyself simple; preserve thee pure; 
Thine own keep small; thy desires poor." 

If any of you would object and say that no progress is 
possible under such conditions, I am ready to answer you ; first 
by the question: How do you know? Has it ever been tried! 
And next I will declare that that which we call ' ' progress ' ' is a 
sad caricature of that which your own ideas demand. 

Thus far I have been speaking more or less abstractly. I 
must therefore bring this subject of Wu Wei or "non-action" 
down on a practical plane, down to our level. And I can do it 
by employing four forms of Tao, of which Laotzse speaks. The 
first form is called humility. How does the Tao-Teh-King itself 
explain humility? Here is the answer (LXL), "When a great 
kingdom takes a lowly position, it becomes the place of concourse 
for the world; it is the wife of the world. The wife by quiet- 
ness invariably conquers the man. And since quietness is also 
lowliness, therefore a great kingdom by lowliness towards a 
small kingdom, may take that small kingdom. And a small 
kingdom, by lowliness towards a small kingdom, may take that 
small kingdom. And a small kingdom, by lowliness towards a 
great kingdom may take that great kingdom. So that either 
the one stoops to conquer, or the other is low and conquers. 
If the great kingdom only desires to attach to itself and nourish 
(that is, to benefit), others, then the small kingdom will only 
wish to enter its service. But, in order that both may have 
their wish the great should be lowly.' ' 



WU WEI 201 

In the same vein it is said (XXXIX.) " princes and kings 
speak of themselves as orphans, lonely men and wheelless 
carts. ' ' 

In the 67th chapter Laotzse associates with humility what 
he calls his three "precious things or jewels," which are: 
gentleness, economy, and shrinking from taking precedence of 
others. "With gentleness,/ ' he says, "I can he hold; with econ- 
omy I can he liberal ; shrinking from taking precedence of others, 
I become a vessel of the highest honor. ' ' 

These three, gentleness, economy and shrinking from taking 
precedence of others, together with humility, are the four forms 
of Tao or rather of Teh, which make Wu Wei possible for us 
in daily life. We are only too apt to say that the bad succeed 
in this world and that the good go down. I question the truth 
of the assertion. Look closely and you shall find as I have 
found, that it is not so. There is justice everywhere; karma 
rules. 

To understand fully how Wu Wei or the principle of non- 
action can work as a principle in state government, it is neces- 
sary that I should explain the fundamentals of the Chinese state 
organism, which is so different from ours. 

The life of Nature-peoples, as I call them, or of people who 
"live according to Nature/ ' as we say popularly, is like that of a 
child. 

I will take as an example a child four or five years old. How 
does it live? Does it know that it lives? Can it have any 
consciousness or reflective thought about its own existence? No! 
none ! The moment it has reflective consciousness of itself it is 
no more a child. 

Excepting the important fact, that the child lives outside 
its mother, and, that of course is most important, it is after all 
still so much dependent upon its mother that it can be said, that 
it is still in the womb, or in the mother's environment, and 
bound so closely that it depends upon her altogether. In the 
main it is merely a hereditary expression of the race, family 
or society, in which it lives. The child lives in generals, not in 
particulars, in Wu Wei, not in self-assertion. 

The child does not live its own life, y strictly speaking. The 
mother lives for it, thinks for it, plans for it, feeds it, clothes it. 
The child lives according to nature, at least in normal cases. 
It is not concerned in any way with the problems which it meets 
later in life. It does not even know that they exist, and could 



202 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

not be made to understand them if they were presented. The 
child may say "I" about itself and it may more or less selfishly 
assert itself in cries and volitions and be naughty, but it dees not 
know what it is to be naughty except by being told, nor has it 
any shame, gratitude or any so called moral sense, except by 
drill. The child has neither intellectual nor moral pains or 
joys. It has no aesthetic feelings for the beautiful either. But 
the child is imitative. Imitation is the most characteristic thing 
about it and has been so since the second half of its first year 
of existence, and, the workings of imitation show the presence 
of will and becomes the beginning of learning and of individual 
development. 

But if the child does not possess these ideas, it normally 
has all the joy and pains that come from the play of impulse and 
from feeding, sleeping and growing, including the pains that 
come naturally from teething and the like of children's troubles. 
Its little imagination entertains itself when the child hears 
stories told. And the child is a complex thing of personal 
pride, habits and self -consciousness. Spontaneously and with- 
out duplicity, formality or reserve, its mental life comes out in 
action. It has no prejudice and conventionality till these two 
are implanted by social formalities or by the parent's vanity. 

In these, the positive sides of its life, the child is just as 
dependent as it is in the negative described before. 

Under both conditions it can be said that the child cares 
for nothing; it takes life as it comes. The child born among 
poor people is no worse off for the moment than that born 
among the rich. Neither of them know what riches or poverty 
are. 

The child has possibilities for growth, for intellect, for 
spiritual sense, but it is practically an animal in its life. The 
difference lies in the possibilities. The child is a possible 
human being, but no real one yet. 

This criticism is by no means unfavorable to the child. On 
the contrary. For good and for bad the child is a dependent 
creature as I have described. It lives in generals, not in par- 
ticulars; in Wu Wei, not in self-assertions. As it is, we say 
correctly that the child lives according to nature. 

Hear how an old Tao-ist talks about a life according to 
nature. Huai-nan-tzu said: 

"What is it that we mean when we talk about the natural 
or inherent ? It is that which is homogeneous, pure, simple, unde- 



HUMILITY 203 

filed, unvarnished, upright, luminous and immaculate, and which 
has never undergone any mixture or adulteration from the 
beginning. And what is the human or artificial? It is that 
which has been adulterated with shrewdness, crookedness, dex- 
terity, hypocrisy and deceit; that which bends itself into com- 
pliance with the world, and defers to the customs of the age. 
For instance, the ox has horns and a divided hoof, while the 
horse has a dishevelled mane and a complete foot; this is the 
heavenly or natural. But if you put a bit into the horse's 
mouth and pierce the nose of the ox, this is human or arti- 
ficial." 

The following is in the same vein: "If Nature has given 
you black hair, don't try to dye it yellow; if you have a sallow 
or pale complexion, don't daub it with pink paint; if your waist 
measures five and twenty inches around, don't try to squeeze it 
into eighteen. All such attempts are violations of Nature, and 
are sure to bring their own punishment along with them." 

As you see, those old people knew perfectly well what it is 
to be natural. The principle of naturalness is the principle 
of the child's life and this principle may be attained by Wu Wei, 

Now, all this about the child applies to peoples. It is for 
that reason that I have entered upon so many details. It 
applies directly to the conditions of Chinese life in which the 
Tao-Teh-King plays such an important part. 

I must now describe the Chinese life and let me say to 
you that neither this description nor the one of the child is 
merely for your entertainment. The Chinese life of which you 
now shall hear, and, that of the child of which you just heard, 
are looking glasses that faithfully reflect conditions in which 
you and I now are, or, which you and I have just left, or are 
about leaving. Bear in mind that Tao and the early followers 
of Laotzse are not included among the Chinese I describe, nor 
is the village life as described in the Tao-Teh-King to be 
included. 

The Chinese is an old man still in the cradle. When I say 
that, I have really given his characteristic in a nutshell. He is 
old; a very, very old race; he seems to be a remnant of pre- 
historic times; but he is still in the cradle, that is, he is still 
a child as far as historic life is concerned ; just such a child as 
I have described. He is still living "according to nature." 
But as he has not passed through the evolution of mind and 
regeneration of spirit, he is still in the cradle, or nature 's womb. 



204 THE INNEE LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

In this respect he is like a boy that never becomes a man. 
Go to China and you shall see that people of all ages play 
children's games, knowing nothing higher; that state officials 
are spanked, as are children where spanking is the custom. 
You shall find them so naive that you cannot understand them, 
even when you know their language; exactly as it is with the 
true child. Read their books and you shall see that their 
writings are merely aphorisms and totally lack rational connec- 
tion of sentences, and, that is because the Chinese mind lacks 
perspective. How funny a child's letter is! How funny a 
Chinese painting without perspective! You shall also notice 
that Chinese writings are mostly collections of traditions and 
lack the incentives to actions now or in the future. They live 
in the past. That, too, is the child. 

In China you will see that agriculture is a religious and 
devotional cult. By toil, not by psalm singing or flattery they 
worship Mother Nature. Labor is to a Chinese a religious act. 
Nature is to him, as it is to other primitive people, the Mother. 
They kneel down and kiss the earth. Our farmers think only 
of crops, and they spread manures, plow and harrow for self- 
interest, not on account of any ideas of sacrifice, offerings, or 
like cults. The Chinaman's offering is work, hard labor. 

The Chinese mind is natural history rather than psychology. 
It resembles the child described. Our education aims at new 
developments, but the Chinese object is preservation of results, 
reverence for tradition; quickening of memory rather than 
thinking. He imitates and does not care to create anything 
new. 

His art is craft, artifice, and hifl language is monosyllabic, 
totally without grammatical reflective forms. What we do by 
grammatical forms, such as tense, or case, he does by modula- 
tion of voice. You will remember the curious mistakes of mis- 
sionaries, which I mentioned in a former chapter, all caused by 
false intonation. 

His music contains no inner note. It is merely sounds in 
succession, noise. His village life is merely an extension of 
a number of families living in one place and with a so-called 
governor appointed over them by the emperor. Somewhat like 
our territories; patriarchal government we call it in history. 
City life as we know it in theory is totally unknown. Where 
it has been attempted under foreign influence it even beats the 
outcast life of such places as London, New York, or Yokahama, 



THE CHINESE 205 

in degradation and depravity, as might be expected. I need 
mention only Shanghai as an example. 

Eeligion as a transcendental longing and spiritual regenera- 
tion is as incomprehensible to the Chinese as it is to the child. 
He knows only this life and thinks his departed ancestors live in 
the astral spheres, and he fears them. You should remember that 
this does not apply to Tao-ists. 

We are able to make a tolerably clear picture of the state 
of things in the five centuries from 771 to 220 B. C. I shall 
speak of some of the points that relate to my subject. 

Eeligion in a Western sense did not exist; even the word 
did not exist. Neither did notions or words for church or 
temple or priestly caste exist. "Gods" were known and of- 
fenses against "gods" were defined, but people had not yet 
sunk down to too much belief in "gods," and extravagant 
belief was called superstition. You see then that some purity 
or originality still existed. "Sin" meant no offense against 
a god, but an infraction of nature's general laws, such as these 
laws were defined by imperial command or by vassal princes 
delegated to define them. When the emperor defined these 
laws he was called "son of heaven." 

Prayer was common enough. Here is an illustration. When 
the Chou conqueror fell ill, his brother, later regent, prayed 
to Heaven for the recovery of his brother and offered himself 
as a substitute ; the clerk was instructed to commit the offer to 
writing, and this solemn document was locked up. Other similar 
instances are on record. It is even recorded that the emperor 
of Tsin, who was steeped in Laotzse's philosophy, in 210 B. C. 
prayed and offered sacrifices because of a bad dream, and was 
thus advised by his soothsayers. 

But though the Chinese had to some extent sunk to sacri- 
ficial prayers, and the blood of the victim was constantly called 
for, they were yet ignorant of the occidental ideas connected 
with conscience, fear of God, mortal sins, repentance, absolution, 
alms-giving, self-mortification, charity, sackcloth and ashes, 
praise, glorification ; all those notions which to Jews, Christians 
and Mohammedans mean so much. 

Morally he is a materialist in the extreme ; his manners and 
customs do not rest upon spiritual values, but upon extreme 
realities and the expedient. His ethics is Nature-life, both 
good and bad. That is childlike also. 

All this applies to the Chinese in general. 



206 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

In China, there are, as elsewhere three classes of people: 
(1) The mass; (2) the learned and (3) the ruling class. The 
relationship of the people and prince may be seen from a quota- 
tion from Mentgzse's works. 

"The people are the most important and the prince the 
least important (because), the people can make the prince, but 
the prince cannot make the people. ' ' Further elucidation of this 
statement that the prince is of little importance you can find in 
the Tao-Teh-King. 

In all of this you recognize the child. Some of it is child- 
ishness and some of it is child-likeness and the child-likeness is 
the condition we come into by means of Wu Wei or "non 
action," as it is called. The childishness of it is the result of 
activity or interference with Tao and Teh. 

I have given you a faithful description of the psychological 
conditions of the child and of the Chinese people. In your 
opinion none of these conditions are desirable, because you nat- 
urally judge them from the modern point of view of history and 
from an advanced point of growth in evolution. I will not 
say that those conditions suit us to-day, that would be absurd 
and impossible to prove, but I will say that the principles back 
of the child's conditions and the principles back of the China- 
man's condition are most desirable, and moreover, I will say that 
they must be recovered. I will put some arguments before 
you to prove both of my assertions. 

The principle that lies in Wu Wei and which is back of the 
child and of that condition I described the Chinaman in, is in 
occidental philosophical language called by various names, some 
of the most important of which I will mention. The first is 
immediacy. The term explains a condition which is original, 
or so direct and unconditioned that it comes without any efforts 
or means ; and, which needs no proof. It means that which 
is natural to us; the heart's revelations; the truths implanted 
in man by nature and spirit and, in a broad way, that which is 
self-evident. 

Upon this fact of an inner direct and immediate knowledge 
is built the doctrine that such knowledge, with the exclusion of 
all mediateness, is the truth. 

Immediacy is also called (spiritual) instinct implanted, or 
innate ideas, "natural reason," common sense, "Faith." 

When the sage says "I know I am I" he needs not give any 
proof. His knowledge is an immediate knowledge, or a know- 



IMMEDIACY 207 

ledge without proof. This phrase, "I know I am I" does not 
mean that he can make a reasonable statement of that fact if 
called upon to do it; it means simply that he has a sense of 
identity, a sense of being an individual in contradistinction to 
another individual. 

As a mere elementary fact, the same truth applies also to 
my dog who demonstrates his individuality on the street by 
rushing for the first dog he sees and getting into a fight. The 
dog's case is also one of immediacy, but one on a lower plane. 
The point of identity between the sage's immediacy and that of 
the dog's is this, that both realize themselves and truth directly 
and without proof or demonstration. The two states are oppo- 
site poles of intelligence, but within intelligence. In the mid- 
dle lies our common everyday world with all its volitions, rea- 
sonings, desires and quables. People without realization of 
the value of the sage's immediacy stay in the dog's condition; 
they, like the dog, live their lives in desires, and take no thought 
for higher things. The thoughts they have are engaged in the 
affairs of the day, for self-satisfaction and all other selfish ends. 

The sage at the other pole has abandoned all such desires 
and volitions and thinkings ; yea, even more, he has become so 
settled in the direct vision of truth and is so completely in the 
company of the highest powers, that he even does not know 
the lower conditions any more ; they are not only forgotten, but 
no more make a part of his mental, moral and spiritual condi- 
tion. 

Who and what the sage really is, I have described in earlier 
chapters, in phraseology drawn from the Tao-Teh-King. I will 
now add thereto some of my own ideas in order to throw 
further light upon immediacy, or the state we are in when we 
live in Wu Wei or "non-action" and beyond. 

The sage in the condition of immediacy seizes his point 
with an intuition almost feminine, no matter what the point may 
be, intellectual, volitional or perceptional. And when he has 
got his point, he realizes it with enthusiasm. These realiza- 
tions are thoroughly individual, that is, when he presents a 
philosophical idea, he does not do it in cool rationality, nay, his 
presentation is thoroughly personal. It is himself. There is 
no abstraction about it; it is his idea, and, we see and feel his 
individuality. In the Occident we are disposed to throw con- 
tempt upon such a man and his teachings. We have become 
so accustomed to the worship of words, or literary idols, that 



208 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

we cannot perceive the life that comes to us through a sage, and 
our loss is consequently enormous. We get empty shells, and 
no more. The sage's immediacy contains a revelation, but we 
miss it. Immediacy as it works in the sage is the main char- 
acteristic of all Inner Life. Immediacy means feeling the 
truth, not reasoning it out. It lives in faculties of inner per- 
ceptions not cultivated in the Occident except among the mys- 
tics or Inner-Life-people. These people rest in their own 
subjectivity, and that subjectivity is moulded according to the 
eternal pattern, and all they need to do is to look and describe 
what they perceive themselves. An inner illumination is al- 
ways present and that loosens the fetters of the mind and allows 
the mind, according to the degrees of its culture, to set forth 
the perceptions in words or deeds. 

When we meet such immediacy we should not argue, but 
prefer insight to argument ; subjectivity to objective forms. The 
insight allowed us will show the universe one glorious and eter- 
nally active whole. It will show us that mankind literally 
is divinity "in the making/ ' that each one of us potentially is 
a living divine attribute. It will show us that we are not made 
by circumstances or by our environment, but from within. All 
this is gained by Wu Wei. 

Immediacy discards or rather does not possess understand- 
ing as a degree of reason. It is like the child I have described ; 
still a part of the whole and not claiming separate existence. 
It discards reasoning, but glories in its image-making power, a 
power which to it is everything and which does everything for 
it. In fact immediacy and the image-making faculty are twins, 
and between them they weave the real into individual forms. 
Immediacy is the loom and the image-making faculty is the 
weaver. Most of us cannot see, much less understand, the pat- 
tern that is woven, but when it is finished we see the sage. 

I have said that when we meet immediacy we should not 
argue, but prefer insight to argument. Now I add, when we 
meet the sage we should not ask for a system of wisdom or an 
intellectual structure, but we should learn of him and through 
him as an individual; and relationship should be one of life, 
not one of thought ; one of personal intercourse, not of distance. 
I think the true relationship is expressed by Jesu command 
to eat his flesh and drink his blood. In Tao and Teh all dis- 
tinctions disappear and things are identical, universal, in unity. 

Common people who regard the objective or the tangible 



wu wei 209 

world as the only reality, will acknowledge existence is an 
unsolved riddle and a perpetual conflict. The sage tinder- 
stands the principle of identity of things. 

Kwang-tze tells an anecdote to show how little value one 
ought to place upon distinctions. A keeper of monkeys ordered 
that their rations of nuts should be three in the morning and 
four at night; at this the monkeys were very angry and com- 
plained, and so the keeper ruled that the monkeys should have 
four nuts in the morning and three at night. And with this 
the monkeys were very well satisfied. They got no more nuts, 
but their whims or subjective views were satisfied. Another 
lesson can be drawn from that anecdote and Kwang-tzse draws 
it. It is this, that the sage cares not for distinctions; con- 
traries to him are identical and by following what he calls "two 
courses at once" he follows the laws of heaven; what "two 
courses at once" is I will explain. 

The real Taoist is "both-and"; not "this" or "that"; he 
is the reconciliation of opposites. Says Tao-Teh-King (XXVIII) : 

"Who his manhood shows 
And his womanhood knows 
Becomes the empire's river. — 
All come to him, yea all beneath the sky," 
and he is 

"The simple child again, free from all stains." 

"Who his brightness knows 
And his blackness shows 
Becomes the empire's model. — 
He in the unchanging virtue arrayed, 
Man's first estate, the absolute. 

"Who knows his fame 
And guards disgrace 
Becomes a specious valley. — 
And men come to him from all beneath the sky," 
and in him 

"They hail the simple infant." 

Such a state is immediacy of the sage's kind and the very 
state we wish to attain and do attain by Wu Wei. 

It was so in olden time, when mankind was still young. 
Then the sage was the leader of men and in undisputed posses- 
sion of the truth. Alas ! The age of innocence is lost — for 



210 THE INNEE LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

good and for bad! We cannot recover what Mother Nature 
has taken back. The wheel of existence can neither be stopped 
nor made to revolve in the opposite direction. What Time 
has devoured cannot be restored, nor do we ask for the age of 
innocence or for the return of anything past. We have no need 
of these things, because the ages are still rotating and a new 
age of innocence is always possible; the wheel of existence is 
still revolving and offering the same possibilities as of yore, 
and time is everlastingly renewing all things. The mechanism 
of the universe is as young as ever. What we can do; what 
we must do; what we want to do is to learn Wu Wei of these 
ancient people, for it was by Wu Wei that they obtained happi- 
ness and immortality, and that is what we want. 

Thus far I have been concerned with immediacy, and there- 
by with intelligence and knowledge as one aspect of Wu Wei. 
But there is also another and a most important side of our 
nature to be considered and that side also represents principles 
back of the life of the child and the Chinese as above described. 
That side is the side of conduct. 

To perfect wisdom corresponds perfect goodness or love or 
affection. They correspond like masculine and feminine and 
like intellect and will. It is good practice to consider goodness, 
love, affection and will as the interior, and wisdom and intellect 
as the exterior, and in that respect we shall be in agreement 
with all Inner-Life-people. They all consider Love a direct 
form of Divinity, and say that when one acts from love he acts 
divinely. Love is to them divinity immanently present in the 
world and as such the principle that binds the world and its 
parts together. Plato might well and truthfully say ' ' that love 
is the mediator and interpreter between God and men. ' ' 

It is this principle that works at the root of the child's life 
and also back of the Chinaman's childishness and which is also 
in Wu Wei. They are both, the child and the Chinaman, wis- 
dom and love, types of the power that binds things together. 
They both act intuitively and through the will. They are 
both flames of good, though unwittingly and often to the scorn 
of others. 

These two principles of Wu Wei dominated in those ancient 
days of China, such as I have told you the Chinese Taoists 
reported them. Those ancient days they called "the age of per- 
fect virtue' ' or Teh. They were, as I have said so often, a 
result of Wu Wei and worthy of our imitation. 



NATURE 
XIV. 

IN this chapter I will give a few hints to the understanding of 
the Shawnee tale told before. A full interpretation I have 
given elsewhere. The present hints will help to an under- 
standing of Teh and conclude the exposition of the subject. 
Waupee and his life may be looked upon from the standpoint 
of the three gunas and that view will show how great he is. 
The introductory description of him in the story shows the two 
gunas : Tamas, the fundamental quality of bigness in rest, both 
in activity and in passivity; it shows him in nature's primary 
state of preparation or " inertia, ' ' if this word be properly under- 
stood. The same description also shows him in the guna of 
Bajas or as a youth full of energy and motion. He is always 
in action, hunting, fishing, exploring and studying his surround- 
ings. These two qualities, for good and bad dominate him 
until the time he weds the celestial sister. Her advent, the 
story tells us, makes him perfectly happy and that is an evidence 
of the sattwa quality, the force and power of harmony, of truth. 
The three taken together show him as no mere specimen of a 
man, but as a species of man. 

You know that the three gunas are modified in seven kinds 
of ways or in a sevenfold way. All of these I also see in Waupee. 
Let me show them in the seven steps in his life. "We hear 
first a description of the simple minded Waupee who, to begin 
with, is without any special development in any direction. The 
first step is his first day's discovery and the rise of selfhood in 
him, caused by the marvels of the open plain and his first vision 
of the sisters. The second is his assertion of selfhood in deceit, 
when he "plays the possum.' ' The third is renunciation of self, 
at the time he became a mouse. The fourth is his marriage 
to his own Higher Self, represented by wedding the celestial 
sister. The fifth is his ' ' fall, ' ' described as his being ' ' absent, ' ' 



212 THE INNEE LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

and the loss of the sister as a result of these "absences." The 
sixth is his condition of suffering because of his loss and his 
resultant "penances," represented by his "returns" to the 
haunted spot or the condition in which the Celestial had come 
to him in the beginning. And finally his seventh degree is his 
restoration by the "celestial marriage," at the time he comes 
up on the heavenly plains. 

His return to earth has nothing to do with his development. 
That represents a new feature of what I will call a second series 
of development. The story of the return may also be looked upon 
as Indian folk lore to account for the origin and character of the 
White Hawk. 

It is curious, but it is a fact, people will rather walk that 
Path, which is Teh, positive, than the Path, which is Teh, nega- 
tive. It appears that we will rather stand a strenuous life than 
a negative, and yet, the negative, Wu-Wei, would quickly give us 
the fulfillment of all legitimate desires. We will rather be killed 
by overwork than by non-action. That appears to be the condi- 
tion of mankind in general. 

Yet a closer examination will easily show that no one can 
live positively without being "hammered" from time to time. 
Death is a necessary element in the universe. Nobody likes a 
cross. Yet, Teh, positive, is not finished before we learn to love 
the cross and approve of afflictions. The reason is this, that 
only submission produces genuine simplicity. The eternal 
"No !" that follows some people, finally frees them. The closed 
doors are closed to prevent side-tracking. The ball that some 
drag after them fastened to the foot hinders hastiness. And 
all the endless chains that hold so many of us in conditions we 
call prison life are so many ropes that connect with bells that 
hang in the tower of conscience. And these bells are always 
sounding the alarm, when evil desires set us on fire, — still we 
will not listen or obey! 

Crosses are set against all kinds of lawlessness and place 
us in conflict with ourselves ; conflicts that always end in victory 
for the eternal Self. The last thing we discover is that it is 
always justice that cuts down the tree for our cross, and, that it 
is justice which nails it together and hangs us upon it. 

No cross, no crown ! But as little as you or I can manufac- 
ture the eternal crown with our hands, as little can we manu- 
facture crosses of eternal value. Saints, so called, have done 
it. They have tortured themselves, and some have even calcu- 



*i CBOSSES 213 

lated the value of the coming crown in proportion to the manu- 
factured cross. 

Do not manufacture crosses. Those that come to us in the 
natural course of life are quite sufficient. It sounds paradoxical, 
but it is true. Suffering, or the negative in life, has no power 
to hurt us if we live in Wu-Wei, that is, in non-action. It is my 
own action that makes suffering what it is. Teh, negative, is 
of our own making and that is why we walk the road. Nobody 
compels us. 

Who and what is this celestial sister? I claim she answers 
to Teh. You have read what I have said about Teh, and, rather 
abstractly at that. I must therefore add to my foregone state- 
ments a view of Teh, hitherto held back. I have purposely 
ignored the view which I now present, in order to avoid con- 
fusion, and, to connect the conception Teh with Tao, which I, in 
earlier chapters, explained to be Nature, without qualifying the 
term. The connection is now easily made and seen by you; 
when I recall to your mind that all goddesses in the various 
mythologies are no more than personifications of forces or 
nature-powers. I take for granted, that my readers know this. 
That, too, is the case in folklore, and my story is folklore. The 
heroines of folklore are no more than similar personifications. 
This celestial sister of the Indian tale, I have related and now 
endeavor to explain, is such a personification of the Higher Self, 
which reveals itself to Waupee. All heroines and supernatural 
personalities that appear in folklore, folk-songs and old religious 
legends, have no meaning for us unless understood that way. 
Psychology as studied now-a-days endorses this statement. It 
says that the human mind cannot express itself (whatever it 
may feel) or give form to its ideals except by images taken 
from its own subjectivity, nor can we human beings commune 
with another human being except through mind or the Higher 
Self. In no other way can we possibly blend. Mind or the 
Highest Self is the alembic for the smelting of human person- 
alities and the extraction of the pure metal, called Entity. Many 
mystics, however, deny this and claim direct communion with 
the Highest. 

I will offer a few thoughts on the subject of Teh or Mother 
Nature as a personality and then apply these thoughts to an 
understanding of this celestial sister. Mother Nature is not a 
person like you or I; yet we cannot liberate ourselves from a 
realization and the feeling that at times we are guided, checked, 



214 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

even pushed; that at times "the voice of the sileIlce ,, has some- 
thing in it akin to us; that at times we long so intensely for 
what we call "the heart of nature/ ' that we intellectually can- 
not escape the conclusion that there must be an essential affinity 
between the spirit of man and the life of nature. Our feeling 
asserts a personality, something akin to ourselves. But we 
never can get an intellectual verity before us. We are never 
directly approached. The whole activity is going out from us. 
It is so with most of us. 

Mystics of all ages and all lands however tell us that they 
have been spoken to, have walked with and otherwise met such 
a personality. And they have a surety against deception in their 
"inner sense," so they say. Most of us must leave that asser- 
tion to them. We cannot follow, though we will not for that 
reason deny. 

This is a fact : we have a sense of the infinite, the boundless, 
the eternal, and, though that sense will not tolerate any limita- 
tion of this conception, yet that infinite, that boundless, that 
eternal seems to be something like ourselves. In reason, we can- 
not account for the sense, but in feeling we are perfectly at 
rest. And if we are not spoiled by reflective logic, we even 
become eloquent or poetic, as Plato would say. That again is 
the case with most of us, yet mystics assure us of their union 
with that Infinite ! It cannot be verified for us. Who has or 
is in the Truth! 

We have a sense of beauty which responds to the beauty of 
the universe. At times our response is so powerful that we are 
lifted out of our temporary self and perceive ourselves in a 
strange mingling with Nature's beauty, a mingling that bears 
witness to a close relationship. That, too, is for mystics far more 
than mere perception. They are translated beyond themselves 
and their visit yonder leaves them transfigured. Again, I say, 
ordinarily for the mind, it cannot be proved. But that is no 
reason for a denial of such high perception. Some one is 
deceived, mistaking appearance for reality! Is it the mystic or 
the common mind! Is Nature merely appearance? May Nature 
not be the same as that great Personality the mystics speak of? 

But it is not merely emotional people and poets who realize 
the relationship. Greek philosophers were overcome when they 
realized the ordered arrangement of the universe, and the classi- 
cal people all agreed that that which they saw was not confusion, 
but an universe, that is, an existence of one idea, one aim, one 



215 

kind, a One. Of moderns, we know of Kepler's outburst: "Oh, 
God, to think thy thoughts— that is my religion/ ' It was the 
uniformity of what astronomy showed him, and its response 
within that created this perception of a personality ! And the 
Greek realization of the same caused the famous line of Aratus 
and that of Cleanthes: "For God's offspring we are." 

Laotzse, if he had heard it, would have said: "Amen! Yes 
Nature, Teh, is the queen and goddess of mortals." 

But Laotzse would never have clothed his thought in an- 
thropomorphic forms. He felt Her, Mother, Nature, Teh, 
both positively and negatively, but no terms of language or art 
would exhaust his idea and he refrained from use of personifica- 
tions. 

As is well known, Christianity asserts a family relationship 
to the Highest, and that doctrine involves a communion far 
deeper than one of thought merely. 

Yes! cried Goethe, "We are surrounded and encompassed 
by Nature; unable to step out and unable to enter deeper into 
her." 

It is, however, a fact, she has never lifted her veil and no 
man has ever seen her face to face, yet it seems to us, that ever 
and ever she creates new forms, and, ever and ever she rushes 
them out of life again, acting like a person. She is ever sacri- 
ficing her own product, and, death seems her method for get- 
ing more life. We see a system resembling thought. 

This fact, that Mother Nature leaves a red trail after her, 
is often enough, and only too often observed and criticised in 
such a way that the critics only hurt themselves. But those 
of us who have spent a life-time with nature and in close obser- 
vation, study and meditation, think differently. To us Nature 
is no slaughterer or murderer ; no slayer or assassin ; no Moloch 
or Thug, as is only too often said by the ignorant. The truth 
is that she herself is blind and is the sacrifice; she is the one 
slaughtered and slain; she is the one who is offered to Moloch 
and the Thug. She herself wonders why, and has never answered 
her own riddle, and could not lift the veil if she wanted to. 
She herself would like to know the answer to the everlasting 
flux: and transmutation which is her life and being. Well has 
William Harbutt Dawson (N. Y. Sun, Aug. 24, 1901) sung about 
this mystery. 



216 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

Giant of old am I, 

The rock-ribbed earth is my body ; 

The mountains that rise on high, 

These are my hands, my fingers ; 

The snow is my hair, and the clouds 

Gather around at my breathing ; — 

I whisper in wandering winds, 

But the avalanche crash is my calling. 

When I raise myself anon 

And shake my limbs in the sunlight 

The sweat flows forth in rivers. 

Sons and daughters of man 

Eoam at will upon me, — 

Climb to my utmost hand-tips, 

Hide in the hair on my shoulders, 

Glide in the blue of my eyes, 

In cor'acles made of the corn husks,— 

But I heed not their coming and going. 



Mystery am I to myself. 

Knowing not why, whence, whither, 

Knowing not purpose or end, 

Or the things that were or shall be ; 

Only faintly surmising 

That I was by another fashioned; 

A being vaster than I, 

Stronger in thew and sinew 

Mightier in body and arm-girth : 

"Giant of eld, thy child, 

I greet thee Unknown, Great Maker! 



But a wonder stranger is mine, 

From age to age enduring: 

As I lie in the night's deep silence, 

(When the light-giver rests in his chamber), 

And gaze in the firmament o 'er me 

Far from my utmost arm's reach, 

Far from the sound of my calling, 

And watch in the solemn distance 

Of infinite space overshadowing 



MOTHER NATURE 217 

Those pale fires burning yonder, 
Never farther or nearer, 
Never brighter or dimmer, 
Burning forever and ever: 
This is the wonder unceasing 
This is the light that appals me! 

It is the light, the counterpart that seems so far off, that 
becomes "the wonder unceasing.' ' 

You hear the melancholy all through this confession of self- 
conscious earth-nature: "Giant I am — yet I am as naught !" 
And why? Because the light is so far off! The cry of the 
poem is the cry of life for light, a cry that can be heard every- 
where, not only where the moose calls across the lake, but in 
the roll of the thunder, when lightning leaps from cloud to 
cloud ; not only where human souls sigh in pain, but also when 
and where the angels, who have no body, look into the mysterious 
garment of men and wonder. And why this wonder! Why 
"this wonder unceasing V y Because, Nature, ever in pain, ever 
bearing and reproducing is also self-sacrificing, and it is the cry 
of the victim and the smoke of the offering that throws the 
melancholy veil over her, preventing her from understanding the 
mystery of which she herself is the wonder. She is a sublime 
No-thing. Nature is like Teh. Teh is life and Tao is struc- 
ture. They cannot exist apart. In the poem just read, Nature 
is life, and light is the counterpart ; and, the two are inseparable 
and mutually call for each other, and are in pain when separated. 

Look into the eye of a dog or a bird and the melancholic 
question stands there is large letters! There is life seeking 
light. Look over the landscape, be it ever so smiling, you 
think ; look long enough and the mystery shall be seen. 

Wherever she is, she is incarnate and manifested in a form 
of sacrifice. She does not live for her own sake, she is part of 
another. As you heard it in the poem, she wonders ! she suffers ! 

Now, see how this Mother Nature, is a savior, an ever pres- 
ent deliverer: Whenever things have come to an extreme and 
balance is lost — there is an explosion and things readjust them- 
selves. That is deliverance, salvation. 

When the day has been excessively hot and we are about to 
succumb for lack of air fit to breathe, Nature in the evening 
either provides a thunderstorm in which all the miasma of the 
air eats itself up and we are set free under a clear sky and to 



218 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

new hope and life, or she sends a cool night to redeem us. Is 
she not thus a deliverer, a savior! 

If she robs the shore on one side of the ocean, she gives 
freely on the other and the whole does not lose, but is set free 
from stagnant conditions. Is she not saving from death? Eeal 
death! She has no speech or language, but she takes care of 
me and saves me from fall by the tongue and the voice she 
creates in another for that purpose! Is that not redemption? 
Men do not see Salvation nor understand their own redemption, 
because the mother never betrays the mystery. She never 
betrays it openly, but she whispers it to her darlings. 

Another way of putting it would be to say that it is the 
essential character of Nature to sacrifice self, to consume self 
and to rise again from the ashes like the fabled bird Phoenix. 
This is something we see daily, hourly, always and everywhere 
in organic life and in a little slower process, but none less cer- 
tain, in inorganic existences. Change and transmutation every- 
where ! 

Nature in us is that wonderful, strong and sharply drawn 
pattern according to which your separate individuality is built 
top in a personality. It is the throb of the blood and the excit- 
ability of the nerves that do the work of building, repairing 
and improving. It is that master-power Will which holds the 
rudder firmly and prevents your ship from wreck and ruin. It 
is the navigator, Intelligence, studying the charts and keeping 
the course straight. It is that quick and living perception which 
intuitively finds the way in darkness, distress and in all growth. 
It is that urge and those longings which restlessly call you, and 
invite you to search the depths and to scan the latitudes. It is 
those images of Eternal Beauty which stand as beacon lights in 
your life ; and it is that intense wish to be good which from time 
to time enthuses you; it is also the dawn and the full daylight 
of understanding that leads you on and on. Everywhere it is 
motion, birth, rebirth and it never tires nor comes to an end; 
it is immortal; dreadfully immortal. All these phenomena we 
imagine to be the glories of existence — yes ! they are that !, but 
they are also subtle falsities, shadow plays and impermanen- 
cies! They are positive while on the early stages of the Path; 
they are negative later on. Two sides of Nature ! some of the 
wise men declare they have seen this power beyond the universe 
and themselves, but have left no records of the vision ! 

I will now gather together these various thoughts, opposites 



ETERNAL. BEAUTY 219 

and contradictory as some of them are. When gathered and 
seen at one point, they represent to some extent that stupendous 
power and moving force called Teh in Laotzse's book, and also 
those personifications which we in mythology call goddesses, and 
in folklore hear of as celestial visitors, like the young sisters 
in the American Indian story about Waupee and the other 
visitors I referred to in a former chapter, which came to Boe- 
thius and to that poor copyist who died saying, "I lost what I 
never possessed." In a summary the characteristics are some- 
what like this : 

There is about us a power, infinite and mighty; we feel it 
to be personal like ourselves, and, fail to express our feelings 
unless we choose anthropomorphic terms. Mystics assure us this 
power is personal, but common mortals have no experience by 
which to prove it. Ancient philosophers also expressed them- 
selves and declared there is a close relationship between our- 
selves and that power. Laotzse felt the same, but used no personal 
terms for his feeling. Keen intelligence and pure emotional 
souls look upon this power as sacrificing its own product in 
order to create more life, and, they also see this power, which 
they call Mother-Nature as self-sacrificing, though it appears to 
them that she does not herself know the aim and end of her self- 
sacrifice. But they see her self-sacrificing to have the same aim 
and end as her sacrificing her own product, namely, the produc- 
tion of more life. These deeper seeing minds and more sensitive 
souls see in all this sacrificing both of her Self and her products 
the salvation or deliverance of man from thraldom and the earth 
from death. They see her as the fabled bird, Phoenix, as change 
and transmutation; they feel her as nervous force; as master- 
will; as intelligence and quick perception; as unceasing long- 
ings and as an image of Eternal Beauty ; as the wish to be good 
and the enthusiasm to be it; as birth, rebirth and immortality. 

The principle of all this is embodied in this mysterious 
Celestial Sister that comes to Waupee. She is to him both 
heavenly and earthly. She comes like a sacrifice to him, that 
he may be lifted into the higher plane and she sacrifices him in 
order to be his salvation. 

Teh acts in the same way with us all. 



AN APPENDIX ON JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU'S 
IDEAS OF "A RETURN TO NATURE" 

XV. 

I HAVE made so many references to "A Return to Nature/ ' 
that, to avoid misunderstandings, I now append a few words 
on Jean Jacques Rousseau's famous sentence, "The Return 

to Nature,' ' a sentence my reader may easily suppose that 
I have had in mind and refer to. 

In my use of the phrase "return to Nature' ' there is no 
other reference to Rousseau than the one that naturally arises 
when great men like Laotzse and Rousseau both draw from the 
great wells of the Inner Life, which as a Finnish proverb well 
says, "Diupa brunnar torka iclce: Deep wells never dry up." 
The well they both drew from was Nature, and it is to Nature 
that both, in their own peculiar way, recommend a return. 

Both Laotzse and Rousseau understood by Nature: imme- 
diacy, simplicity, freedom and goodness, and they set Nature in 
those senses against culture by which they understood that 
which makes life complicated, constrained, evil and too reflective. 
By culture they meant the formalism, social and ecclesiastic, of 
their day. Their general tendencies were therefore the same 
and very much like those of the reformers of various times. 
It is in such senses that Rousseau and Laotze agree. 

Their methods and expressions naturally differed widely. 
Laotzse lived many centuries before our era and in a country 
of so much ceremonialism and formalism that we hardly can 
imagine its condition. Everything was overdone, in religion, 
ethics and societary order, though these were not evil or corrupt 
as we understand such terms. Order had become a tyrant and 
was no more a help to live rationally. Regulations or cus- 
toms crushed expansion and competition. Men did not think 
for themselves, but observed rules laid down by others as ignor- 
ant and narrow as themselves, but in power of government. 
This state of affairs was a result of the former age's struggles 



JEAN JACQUES EOUSSEAU 221 

for mental, moral and spiritual life and freedom. In that age, 
it was a living state of things, and it was a high form of civiliza- 
tion and culture and useful for progress, hut it was not taken 
over by the next age in its original vitality and progressive 
power, but as mere matter and form, and for that reason it 
became a curse. It was this curse and burden, that Laotzse 
labored against. 

Eousseau lived many centuries after the beginning of our 
era and in an age which he declared, in his Dijon-Prize essay on 
the effect of the progress of civilization on morals (1750), had 
lost its soul and substituted corruption in the same measure as 
it had progressed in the sciences and arts. His age had denied 
a state of happy ignorance with its original spontaneous way 
of living and immediate relations to nature. It had allowed 
itself to be suppressed by externalities ; it had tolerated restless- 
ness to supplant the inner peace, that comes from a contented 
life. Bousseau's charges were set forth with much warmth and 
enthusiasm and it was felt that he was a new power. He 
became famous but, like Laotzse and all men of his stamp, in 
his old age a lonesome and deserted man. His enemies and 
the enemies of naturalness did not like originality, natural 
energy and the fresh and healthy aroma that comes from a life 
in the Open. Such people shun the cool and clear waters fresh 
from the springs. They prefer the compound drinks of intoxi- 
cating liquors and the rich sources of flattery offered at socie- 
ties ' testimonial dinners. 

As they were in Bousseau's day, so they are to-day, and 
right here among us. We have to fight them if we wish to help 
our age to truth and liberty. They are the real hindrances to 
all Inner Life and true social order. They are the associates 
of Kali, the dark and dreadful goddess, who has given the name 
to this age. 

I shall not need to review Laotzse's principles and system, 
if any "system" can be attributed to him. Enough has been 
said in the foregone chapters. But I will give a resume of 
Bousseau's ideas and teachings and invite the reader to make 
comparisons. 

One special difference between Laotzse and the Inner Life 
on one side, and Bousseau on the other, must be noted at the 
outset. It colors all Bousseau's utterances and it places him 
apart when we speak of the Inner Life. He is a literary man, 
and neither religious nor philosophical. 



222 THE INNEK LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

The fundamental type of Eousseau 's thinking is the opposi- 
tion he sees between the immediate, the original, the self-cen- 
tered, the totality of the soul on the one side and the relative, the 
partial, the dependent and the mixed, on the other side. In the 
first he sees life as its own cause and effect, born of its own 
energy and endeavor, and in the second he sees limitations, com- 
pulsions and inner diremption. The first is the Absolute; the 
second is the Eelative. The first is Nature, the second is what 
he calls Culture. 

Eousseau uses the word Nature in three senses. The first 
sense, the theological, appears when he speaks of the world as 
God's creation and the "heavenly and majestic simplicity with 
which its creator adorned it." That divine condition he calls 
Nature and contrasts it with the distortions, twists and obliquity 
introduced by man, which he calls Culture. Eousseau also 
says that all things proceed pure and good from their natural 
origin. 

The second sense, the "natural-history" sense, appears 
when he describes "the primitive condition" and explains how 
inequalities arose. In man's original "zoological" nature-condi- 
tion there was perhaps no marked "majestic simplicity." It 
was an instinctive life. Man had no reflection nor imagination. 
He had but few necessities ; they were physical and easily satis- 
fied. While Eousseau is not blind to the "primitive man's" 
low and brutal state, and seems to have seen its contradiction 
to "the majestic simplicity" elsewhere described, he laments its 
loss. The loss of the life of instinct is to him a sort of "fall" 
from a paradisaical state. 

The third sense of the word Nature appears in Eousseau 's 
psychology. When he speaks in this sense he ignores the two 
others and plunges into introspection, that he may find man's 
original (natural) and fundamental powers and being. The 
result of his examination is that he declares that the original 
Man, or, Man according to his nature, is good and sound, 
though men may be bad. He wants men to return to this, the 
original good and sound nature, to heart-life, and shun all exter- 
nal relations which blurr the vision and contaminate morals. 
He thinks that silence and solitude make it possible for mankind 
to find the original nature. By "being good" Eousseau meant 
that "we express our nature" and he himself in moments — sans 
diversion, sans obstacle — thought himself to have been so good 
such as Nature intended him to be. And he declares emphat- 



THE NATURAL LIFE 223 

ically that all men have fundamentally a desire to be as they 
should and ought to be. There is in everybody a natural ten- 
dency to maintain his selfhood, an amour de soi as he calls it. 
But this amour de soi, the healthy self maintenance, has to meet 
and fight an amour propre, selflove, something our surroundings 
develop, something not ourselves. The amour propre does not 
exist in a society where man has to do with himself alone. Such 
a society does not create a desire for distinction, preferment. In 
the amour de soi there is an abundance of energy, and it is all 
spent in natural self-development, while the amour propre pa- 
ralyses man's energy by shattering his self-centredness. To 
be directed by Nature and to live according to Nature means 
a life according to amour de soi, and, moreover, such a life cre- 
ates sympathy with other beings, the very opposite of amour 
propre which sets distinctions of separateness against other be- 
ings. In the amour de soi only are we free beings and may feel 
ourselves as gods : on se suffit a soi-meme comme Dieul In the 
amour de soi we have few needs and make no comparisons. In 
the amour pro<pre we multiply desires and defer to other peo- 
ple's opinions. 

Like Laotzse, Eousseau also thinks that much learning is 
a hindrance to a natural life. By self-rest, on the other hand, we 
open ourselves to all the natural influxes which correspond to 
our own nature. 

Our best and true teacher in the natural life is feeling, and 
Eousseau has the merit of having placed the feelings in their 
right position in psychology, and, he has that merit in spite of 
previous work done by such men as Spinoza, Shaftesbury, Hut- 
cheson and Hume. We have (all of us) an inherent liking or dis- 
liking; and these are Nature's monitors; they act instinctively 
and speak clearly, where they are not corrupted. Feeling and 
reason are really two sides of the same nature. If we follow 
feeling we live in unity. By feeling is of course not meant our 
sensations, or what psychology generally calls the feelings. By 
feeling is understood broadly, the Inner Man. 

By feeling or which is the same, by inner perception or 
immediate knowledge, we get religion. City people who have 
no feeling except when they run against stone walls ; who have no 
perceptions except when tired out by the length of their streets ; 
who have no immediate kowledge, but are full of reports of 
crimes and the like from their newspapers, — city people have 
no religion. How could any ecstacy strike them! Their 



224 THE INNER LIFE AND THE TAO-TEH-KING 

hearts are not sensitive ; their eyes do not know the wide views ; 
their ears hear only noises, but never the rhythm of the winds 
sighing at sunrise. Let them withdraw from that unnatural 
existence. It never generated religion or mystic longings for 
the greatest, the Infinite. Rousseau never tires of calling to 
us to close our books and ecclesiastic conventions and retire 
to open-air-nature, there to find our own soul, who is our true 
god. 

In the first stages of education, says Rousseau, it is of prime 
importance that the original nature of the child has full and free 
play of its feelings for and against that which it wants or does 
not want. Only by so doing does it become possible to regulate 
the child's growth according to its own inherent character or 
nature and not — according to somebody else's notions. This 
idea is the prevailing one in Rousseau's handling of the problem 
of education. 

In the history of the development of human thought and life, 
Rousseau represents a revival of the ancient naturalism which 
placed instinct above reflection. A little before him there had 
already been an awakening of the Hellenic sense of Nature, 
with all its acceptances of objective joy in natural facts and 
natural simplicity and impulses. But Rousseau is the man 
whom history names as the father of the movement in Europe 
in a general way, and, in France in a special way, and as the 
opponent to abstract ideological notions. 

With Rousseau, feeling comes into the history of philosophy 
as an independent and absolute principle and in no way subject 
to the intellect. From feeling is henceforth derived religion, 
poetry and romanticism, represented by such famous names as 
those of Schleiermacher and Novalis, for instance. Everywhere 
humanity seems to "find its own" by turning against the dry 
intellect, and alas! humanity also finds itself tied by the new 
errors and sins! 

Ever since Rousseau's time genius has spread its wings as 
never before; common man, who before was not even supposed 
to be able to think, broke out from his social and mental prison, 
borne by the new overflowing life and images and thought, and 
combinations of these now made possible have enriched the hu- 
man mind most marvelously. Never before had men directly 
from the soil come forth as leaders in life and thought. The 
New Age culture, such as it is known in the United States, could 
never have seen the day except for Rousseau. 



THE NATURAL LIFE 225 

A sensible study and intelligent application of the ideas and 
methods of Laotzse and Bousseau will go far to refresh indi- 
vidual souls and develop true self-reliance. It will create true 
will power and work, and, wealth both of mind and pocket. It 
will do away with our boastful self-complacency and the intoler- 
able strain of trust associations, and also place these in their 
position as public servants rather than as tyrants. In my opinion 
the new ideas for our age and the coming age, ideas, we all long 
for in the name of religion, philosophy and social organization, 
lie slumbering in the teachings and methods left us by Laotzse 
and Jean Jacques Eousseau. 

In the confidence that I have done something to draw these 
teachings out of their unmerited obscurity, and in the hope that 
they sooner or later may be made useful, I conclude these chap- 
ters on 

The Inner Life and the Tao-Teh-King. 



INDEX 



Alborgi 25 

Anaximander 10 

Anamnesis 14 

Apollo 163 

Aristotle and Aristotelianism. . .10,27 

Arnold, Mathew 43 

Art 36 

Ascetics and Asceticism 37, 46 

Astral plane 8 

Augustine, St 32 

Athanase 59 

Ave Maria 18 

Bathing and Baptism 69 

Beauty 139 

Bhagavad Gita 94, 109ff 

Blake, Wm 51 

Boethius 30 

Bohme, Jacob 32 

Brahminism 35, 94 

Brotherhoods 3 

Buddhism .35, 37, 94 

Candle (symbol) 157ff 

Catharine of Sienna 56 

Caves and Wells ... . 85, 87 

China and Chinese 203ff 

Child, The 202 

Chovang-tzu 44, 199 

Cogito; co-agito 47 

Coleridge 22 

Confucius 62, 96 

Consciousness 139, 141 

"Copyist," The 117ff 

Cosmic Energy 37, 45 

Christianity 11, 35 

Crosses 213 

Demeter 38 

Descartes 32 

Dionysus 162 

East and West , 4 

Eckhardt, Meister 36, 48, 57, 64 

Eleatics 27 



Fichte 32 

Fiona Macleod 50 

Fire Philosophy 27 

Form 51 

Four, Number 145 

Fudji-no-yama 19, 25 

Ganzen, Guten, Schonen-im-zu- 

leben 154ff 

Goethe 15, 102, 142, 154ff 

Grace 59, 70f 

Growth 41 

Good, The 8 

Guyon, Mme 56 

Hassidim . . 35 

Herder 32 

Helen of Troy 142 

Herodotus 29 

Hermas Pastor 52 

Hippocrates 167 

Hopi Indian 23 

Huai-nan-tsze 66 

Idea, The 88 

Idealism .27, 51 

Image of God 28 

Immediacy 43, 56, 206ff 

Indra 113 

Iliad of the East 113ff 

Inner Life Iff, 31ff, 36 t 40, 45 

Intellect 47 

Intelligible World 7 

Ishtar and Ishtubar 38 

Isis 38 

Jacob 32 

Jacobi 32 

Japan 18 

Jesus 37f 

John of the Cross 48 



11 



INDEX 



Tudasism 35 

Jupiter 172 

Kabbalah 35 

Kaf 25 

Kant 5, 32, 47 

Karma 4, 65, 172 

Keats 41 

Kenosis 45 

Knowledge 52 

Kosmos 7 

Ku 189 

Laotzse 72ff, 89ff 

Lessing 32 

Longevity 105ff 

Love 34 

Matter 9f 

Meru ". 25 

Michael Angelo 36 

Milinda 189 

Mohammedanism 35 

Molinos 56 

Mother Goddesses, 

9f, 25, 76, 83, 142ff, 179 

Music 146 

Mystics and Mysticism 34ff 

Mystic Ways 2, 194 

Nagasena 189 

"Nakedness" 38, 190ff 

Nature and Nature Worship. .18, 20, 
57, 63, 84f, 120, 124ff, 132f, 211ff 

Nerthus 85 

Neo Platonism 31 

New York City 23 

Nielsen, Rasmus 31 

Novalis 32 

Nous 144 

Number 144 

Occultism 36 

Okio 18, 20, 26 

Overcoming 15, 38, 46 

Path, The 82, 96, 101 

Philo Judaeus 18 

Plato and Platonism.7, 9, 27ff, 44, 190ff 

Plotinus 32 

Poetry . . .. 148 



Presence, The 74 

Paul, St 168 

Quietism 187 

Rabia 46 

Realism 27 

Reincarnation 4 

Reinhold 32 

Renaissance 32 

Reason 48ff, 140 

Robertson, Fr 36 

Rousseau 43ff, 220ff 

Ruskin 68 

Sa'is Ill 

Salvation 217ff 

Samadhi 5f 

Sculpture 147 

Schelling 28, 32 

Schiller 32, 110 

Schleirmacher 29 

Schoolcraft 181 

Seeing through the Eyes 50 

Self Assertion 107 

Self Realization 154 

Seneca 173ff 

Senses, The 39ff, 140 

Sepher Jetzisah 35 

Shamzy 36 

Shawnee Tale 181ff, 212ff 

Shelley 21, 139 

Simple People and Life 60 

Simplicity 18f, 55ff, 78f, 199ff 

Silence and Solitude llff 

Sincerity 78 

Soul 54 

Space 10 

Spiritism 36 

Stillness 116ff, 129 

Stoics 43 

Sufis and Sufism 5, 28, 35 

Synderesis 48 

Tao and Taoism.. 25f, 33f, 49, 64f, 76ft, 
97f, 130, 134, 136ff, 145 

Tauler 53, 125 

Tea-room 191 

Teh 78, 101, 152ff, 174ff 

Temple 49, 92 

Tennyson 44 



INDEX 



111 



Terstegen 



180 Vedanta .51f 



Thor 38 

Thought 7, 29 

Thought-forms 109ff 

Theosophy 3, 33, 96 

Theresa, St 56 

Tyndal 36 



Water 66ff 

Wisdom 30 

Whitman, Walt 17 

Wordsworth 21, 26 

Wu Wei 20, 25, 116, 187ff 



Upanishads 51 

Uttera Kurus HSfJ 



Zohar 36 

Zoroaster 94, 106 




THE LIFE AND THE DOCTRINES OF 

PARACELSUS 



ALCHEMIST, PHYSICIAN AND PHILOSOPHER 



By FRANZ HARTMANN, M.D. 

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CONTAINING PRACTICAL HINTS FOR STUDENTS OF OCCULTISM 

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A STUDY OF FORGOTTEN TRUTH 



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